I’m confused by all the confusion among the chattering classes about Palin. I thought her press conference explained it very clearly – though she couldn’t put it precisely this way without sounding vain, but it’s obvious.
Even though she’s just a state governor, she’s a HUGE national star who is both sought after and attacked as if she is already a president (a Bush, not an Obama). But she basically can’t participate because she’s tethered to the governor’s office up in Alaska. Consequently, she has to fight with one hand tied behind her back and she also can’t go around the country campaigning for candidates and principles she believes in – because she’s governor and would be accused of neglecting the state.
Meanwhile, the Lt. Gov. is a great guy, so she’s leaving the state in good hands and now she can go on to be an even bigger star.
It’s a weird Washington insider perspective to be perplexed by what she’s doing. Contrary to Mark Sanford’s e-mails to his mistress, no one was really impressed with him; 99.99999999999999999% of Americans didn’t know who he was. Who is more influential: Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and Bill O’Reilly, or Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford (before the fall)? As Palin said, God bless people who run for political office, but – and she didn’t say this part – she’s too big to be a lame-duck governor stuck dealing with fishing licenses in Anchorage right now.
She’ll be much bigger now and can play on the national stage without constantly setting off state ethics investigations by loons, parasites and liberals. None of this applied to McCain or Kerry – both of whom went back to the Senate – because their national campaigns diminished them. Palin’s national campaign made her a major star. As she said, she’s not retreating, she’s advancing in another direction.