I hate this resignation by her, very disappointing. I surmise she's doing it for her kids. Understandable.
If it's for her family and she stays out of national politics, it is understandable. However, her comments suggested other reasons which IMO didn't make sense.
Yesterday one guy says I made a "lefty comment" cause I didn't like this. Another asked who let me out of my "cage in Democratic Underground." (that's the antithesis of this site if you've never heard of it). And I had up on my homepage that I wanted her to run in 2012. I was really taken aback by those reactions.
Yeah, I've gotten the DU comment before as well. Throughout the campaign, Conservatives rightly criticized the strange cult of personality and worship that Obama received from his supporters, yet here if anyone dares to express any form of criticism against Palin, esp after she quit after just 2.5 years in first term, they are summarily attacked as trolls, liberals etc... The blind devotion to her is getting creepy.
FTJM, you are trying to view her actions through the prism of conventionality, and that’s not her. She’s NOT a typical politician, and she does things in her own way. If you’ve been criticized, it’s because you’ve come on like gangbusters jumping down people’s throats, and given that you haven’t been on FR very long, that doesn’t make you look good, and can get you pegged as a troll (regardless of what you’re discussing).
You’d have a point about a cult of personality/”blind devotion” were it true in this case, but I don’t see that as such. You confuse it with being rightfully protective of her from hordes of elites that want nothing other than to destroy her and her family. You want cult of personality on the “R” side, take a look at the ex-Governor from Massachusetts. Doesn’t matter what he’s done, his sycophants (many of whom are paid) will excuse anything that he’s done, lie for him, slander those that discuss his record, or call critics “liberals” (nevermind that he IS one).
But I will say again she didn’t “quit” or “run away” or any of that nonsense. She recognized one basic problem she faced trying to govern in Alaska, and that was that she was NOT going to be allowed to do so. She has Democrats taking their cue from the national party with one missive: she is to be destroyed at all costs to keep her from being a viable candidate for 2012 for President. She has AK RINO liberal big government establishment types (the Murkowski/Stevens/Young faction) acting in precisely the same manner as the Democrats. She is being KEPT from doing the job she was elected to do, deliberately. When she is constantly under attack from these factions, and being buried under a blizzard of baseless ethics accusations designed to drive her to bankruptcy, she has to take stock of the situation and decide what the best course of action is.
The Dems and RINOs were looking to 2010 for the sole purpose of dirtying her up and crippling her so badly in reelection efforts that would leave her unable (or too damaged) to run in 2012 (a similar situation with George Allen in VA in ‘06, who was considered the lead candidate for President in ‘08). She rightly realized that even if she won again, that it wasn’t worth the trouble, especially for an office for which she was not likely to serve out that term. She preempted everything by choosing to step aside for her Lieutenant, who will be able to focus exclusively on the office itself (and in doing so, the Dems and the GOP are deprived of their key target for next year). She managed to achieve four things at once by resigning now, she sided with her family’s desires for her, she put a capable man to succeed her as Governor to carry out a reform agenda, she put Alaska’s needs ahead, and she preserved her viability for 2012 by separating herself from an office that had become an albatross (for which a year ago at this time, it was not).
All in all, a pretty spectacular maneuver, and she can claim to have left the office, and Alaska, in better shape than she found it in. Contrast that with a certain ex-Governor from Massachusetts who deliberately left the office to a Black Chicago-born Socialist (come to think of it, Deval Patrick is having to clean up Slick Willard’s Socialistic mess, and when a Democrat has to clean up a so-called “R’s” disaster, you know it’s bad).