"We've seen a lot of nutty behavior from governors and Republican leaders in the last three months, but this one is at the top of that," said John Weaver, a long-time Republican operative close to Sen. John McCain. Palin did not give any explanation of why she is resigning other than that she was not planning to run for reelection and did not want to be a lame duck. She will be succeeded by Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R-AK), who ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives and lost the primary to incumbent Don Young.
Palin's move is certainly going to dominate the political world for many a news cycle Most politicians would give their eye teeth for even a small shot at their party's nomination for the presidency. Palin was probably the favorite at this moment--although a lot can change in 3 years. Right now, her only serious opponents appear to be Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, neither of whom has as dedicated a following as she does. Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is totally unknown and Mark Sanford might well be living in Argentina with his soul mate by then.
At the very least, this step is seriously unorthodox move and it will freak out a lot of people. The safer approach would have been to remain silent about running for relection, just saying she had not made up her mind yet about which office she wanted to pursue next. Nobody would have found that the slightest bit odd. The filing deadline for governor is close to a year from now, so she could have certainly delayed saying anything until the late Spring of 2010.
Of course, she may still be thinking of running for President in 2012, but she already had a reputation as a lightweight and this move doesn't give her additional gravitas, to put it mildly. Her not wanting to be governor in 2011 while starting a presidential run makes perfect sense. Alaska is just too far from Iowa and Alaska and if she spent too much time there, people would accuse her of neglecting her gubernatorial duties. But if she is resigning for the purpose of gearing up for 2012 already, she will take a lot of heat for it, starting with questions like:
- If governing Alaska was too tough for you, how will you run the whole country?Certainly no one will be asking Huckabee or Romney anything like this.
If Palin vanishes from the public eye until after the 2010 elections, it will be hard to make a comeback and be taken seriously. Comebacks happen--witness Richard Nixon--but Nixon had been a congressman, senator, vice president, and finally presidential candidate who came within a whisker of winning in 1960, before returning to private life. Palin doesn't have anything like that background. Of course, she might try to land a TV show on Fox or some other job that keeps her in view for the next two years (a la Huckabee), but Huckabee is anything but a quitter: he kept campaigning and getting votes in 2008 long after it was clear he couldn't win.
So where does this leave the Republicans in 2012? Palin has probably mortally wounded herself as independents and Democrats are going to regard her as flakey, and her Republican opponents in the primaries will probably not be at all bashful about pointing this out, probably as "not enough experience." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would love to be President but he combines the age of John McCain with the marital history of Rudy Giuliani. McCain treated his first wife very poorly but the media left him alone on this because he never claimed to be the "family values" candidate. Gingrich won't be treated with kid gloves. His having an affair with a staffer while violently attacking Bill Clinton for having an affair with an intern will become campaign fodder. His way of telling his first wife that he wanted a divorce: when she was in the hospital after a cancer operation will surely charm women voters.
So who's left? Huckabee may inherit the evangelical vote since he is an ordained Baptist minister. Mitt Romney will probably have Wall St. on his side again and he could dump another $40 million of his own money into the campaign without having to eat dog food. And, of course, someone not on the radar at all may turn up in 2011. In fact, Palin's strange move may encourage other candidates who figured they couldn't match her popularity to come out of the woodwork. Stay tuned.