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Sarah Palin resigns as Governor – what the pundits are saying
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As most of you know, Sarah Palin announced her resignation as Alaskan Governor yesterday. The video and speech transcript can be viewed here.
So what are the pundits saying? Good move, bad move, political suicide, the launching of a 2012 presidential campaign?
Former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro: “The thing about it is I think she made a bad move . . . not running for re-election is one thing . . . but to not complete her term that she was just elected to a couple of years ago . . . I think is a very very bad move.”
Conservative Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard: “If Palin wants to run in 2012, why not do exactly what she announced today? It's an enormous gamble - but it could be a shrewd one. After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues - and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early - but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.”
Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski: "I am deeply disappointed that the Governor has decided to abandon the State and her constituents before her term has concluded.”
CNN political commentator Paul Begala: “It was an almost impossible mission, but in resigning from office with 17 months to go in her first term, Sarah Palin has made herself the bull goose loony of the GOP.”
Conservative Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer: “ . . . She has an extremely devoted following. But she is not a serious candidate for the presidency. She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn't. She has to stop speaking in clichés and platitudes. It won't work. It could work for eight weeks if you're the number two candidate, as she was last year. But even so, she got singed a lot in that campaign. You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you're running for the presidency.”
Josh Marshall, TPMMuckraker: “ . . . It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media . . . Palin hasn't even had a chance to come up with a coherent cover story for her resignation . . . Palin is a wildly unethical public official, guilty at a minimum of numerous instances of abusing her authority as governor. And a lot of very damaging information has come out about her in the last few days . . . I would not be surprised if this latest round of revelations shook something else loose that we haven't heard about yet.”
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone Magazine: “This is not in keeping with a woman with presidential ambitions. And certainly not in keeping with a politician who has learned to milk a media frenzy for every last drop (see Letterman, David.) No. This has the hallmarks of a politician slinking away before the s**t hits the fan.”
Conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin: “ . . . Sarah Palin is the biggest attraction in the Republican Party . . . and the fact is, if she wants to be president it's very difficult to prepare and organize a serious run while being up in Alaska, out of the limelight . . . she is a huge draw throughout the country, she is the biggest draw in the Republican Party . . . she needs to begin the process of running now.”
Sarah Palin's former running-mate, John McCain: “"I have the greatest respect and affection for Sarah, Todd, and their family. I was deeply honored to have her as my running mate and believe she will continue to play an important leadership role in the Republican Party and our nation.”
Vice-President Joe Biden: “I don't know what prompted her decision to not only not run again and also to step down as a consequence of the decision not to run in 2010 and I take her at her word that it had a personal ingredient in it and you have to respect that.”
Jonathan Kay, National Post: “None of this makes any sense. It's all gibberish. Despite the litany of ALL-CAPS emphasis points contained in the official transcript of Gov. Palin's speech, we still have no real idea why she is resigning. It is to build up a presidential run in 2012 — or because another skeleton is about to jump out of her closet? Or does she genuinely want to get out of politics? It's impossible to say. Her speech is just a jumble of conflicting, facile metaphors stitched together by people who evidently have a low estimation of the public intellect.”
U.S. News and World Report's Robert Schlesinger: “ Palin's resignation speech was a strange hodgepodge, a mix of self-congratulatory horn-tooting, sound-bites and catch-phrases, unexplained political shorthand references ("that liberal 9th circuit!") and awkward ad-libs that left the impression of someone of such towering hubris that she did not think something so mundane as practicing the speech was necessary. When message is secondary to messenger practice may seem a waste of precious time . . . Political success is about hard work and working hard. And progress is made through compromise. But in Friday's speech Palin dismissed hard work and compromise as … the quitter's way out.”
Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: “ It’s easily the most bizarre resignation I’ve seen, and just about senseless . . . The lame-duck explanation was the most incoherent part of the entire statement . . . Using this logic, Palin should never have run for the first term unless she was willing to run for the second, and not run for either if she wasn’t willing (or legally able) to run for a third. Politicians don’t enter lame-duck status until their successor has already been elected and they’re running out the rest of the term. And all politicians become lame ducks at some point — and none of them quit just to avoid it . . . She has destroyed her own credibiity in a single day.”
Rich Lowry, National Review Online: “I think I have pretty well-established credentials when it comes to being charmed by Sarah Palin, but that statement, as a statement, was simply terrible. Rambling and not at all persuasive as an argument for her decision.”
Evan Handler, Huffington Post: “Deep within her rambling and disjointed 'announcement' Friday morning, Sarah Palin stated that she's not going to seek reelection as Governor of Alaska. Then, she went on to say she'll be leaving office before her term is up because serving out the term she was elected to serve wouldn't be best for the people who voted her in. In other words, I'm leaving you -- but only because it's the best thing I can do for you . . . This is the identical excuse I gave to every girlfriend I broke up with in my twenties and thirties. I don't think many of them fell for it back then. I know they've all wised up since.”
Vin Weber, former Republican House member from Minnesota: “A very promising political career appears to me to have crumbled.”
John Weaver, former strategist for the McCain campaign: “If this is her launching pad for 2012, it's a curious move. Policy is politics, and she has no real accomplishments as governor.”
Shannyn Moore, Huffington Post: “For weeks the rumors of a criminal investigation against the governor have been brewing. They are rumors, but are swirling fresh again with Palin's resignation. I'm holding my breath for the other "Naughty Monkey" to drop . . . I have said Sarah Palin's political ambition combined with her intellect is like putting a jet engine on a golf cart; lots of horse power and no steering capabilities. Today she proved it.”
Rich Killion, advisor to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney: "She has a national base of social conservatives she can count on for anything. But I can't get over how she convinces a general election audience how quitting on her constituents is a good thing.”
It remains to be seen what the truth is – but it's a given we haven't heard the last of Sarah Palin.
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