I’d would rather elect someone willing to relinquish power over a title-clinging politician (i.e. Blagovich, Sanford, Chavez) who refuses to surrender power under any circumstances short of being indicted or ousted in a military coup.
“Quitting” isn’t inherently bad, if done for the right reasons. In fact, let’s look at her history. Did you know Palin “quit” another six figure job, her oil & gas ethics commissioner job before she became governor? She resigned to protest corruption when the sitting Republican governor wouldn’t investigate the state party chair for sharing confidential state documents with an oil lobbyist. She quit because by law as a commissioner she couldn’t go public with her concerns because of confidentiality rules. So she quit to be able to blow the whistle on collusion knowing it would probably kill any chance she had to succeed in state politics as a Republican. And you know what happened to that state party chair? He was later given the largest ethics fine in Alaska history, largely because Palin had the courage to put pressure on the governor’s office and the Republican party. And what happened to Palin? She became Governor of Alaska.
Now let’s look at her situation as governor.
Palin was paid roughly 337,500 in 32 months as governor. After 19 bogus ethics charges against her, she owed around 500,000 in legal fees to her attorney. The current laws of Alaska required that every single filed ethics complaint to be investigated no matter how ridiculous (being photographed with a fish, wearing a jacket with a logo, receiving choclates and hockey sticks as bribes) and all at the personal cost of the defendant. Had she stayed in office another 16 months, she likely would have been forced into bankruptcy because Alaska law does not automatically cover the legal defense of its governors nor was the Attorney General of the state or someone else designated by the state to defend her like all other states. If you were working in a job that was costing you almost twice as much to go into work everyday than you were making would you stay there?
Even her set up of a legal defense fund like other politicians have was deemed unethical (It was arguably the strictest legal defense fund in history with all the restrictions it had for those who could donate) wherein a politically motivated investigator suggested Palin should just let Alaska taxpayers pay for her legal defense. They wanted Alaskans to take the bullet for the political malice of Palin’s enemies.. In less than a year, she racked up half-a-million (to put this in perspective, her salary as Governor was only 125,000 a year and she had even declined a 25,000 raise by the legislature) in legal charges with much more to come.
Has any politician at the state level attracted the volume of attacks directed at Palin? Is it normal for a governor to go personally bankrupt defending themselves against bogus ethics complaints? Palin incurred almost twice as much legal debt as the salary she drew as governor. Every day she spent in office she was one day closer to personal bankruptcy.
One can argue that she should have just fought her enemies instead of letting them win.
These frivolous lawsuits effectively paralyzed her administration wasting time and money; moreover, her office was bombarded with countless Freedom of Information Act requests.
The research and paperwork needed to address the lawsuits and FOIA requests, had an estimated cost of State time of 2 million and rising.
If you decide to continue fighting your enemies at the expense of the people you serve is that even ethical? If your presence in office is causing heavy collateral damage to your state, is it smart and ethical to remain in office no matter the cost?
By resigning, Palin effectively took the circus out of Alaska.
It is not a defect to relinquish power for the good of all. When politicians or members of the media criticize Governor Palin for resigning office, remember why she did so. Then ask yourselves, who are these people criticizing her for making that move? What would they have done if they were in her shoes, and why? This move on her part was what a good leader and a true public servant should do, given the circumstances. If only all of our elected leaders put the public good above their own ambition, perhaps this country would be better off.
Never entrust power to those unwilling to surrender it.