Jamie

Weinstein

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July 7, 2009

Palin’s Ambitions Buried, As They Should Be

If one were asked to bet last week on who would be the first Republican governor to have the “former” modifier appended to their governor title, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford or Alaska’s Sarah Palin, conventional wisdom would have suggested Mark Sanford because of his recently exposed extracurricular activities as the self-appointed South Carolina Ambassador to Argentina. But with Sarah Palin’s surprise announcement on Friday that she would be stepping down as governor at the end of the month, it looks like conventional wisdom, in this instance, has been proven wrong.

But conventional wisdom, like conventional politics, isn’t always wrong.

Conventional wisdom dictates, among other things, that one should not use electrical appliances while taking a bath, that when you go skydiving you should probably take along a parachute, and that you shouldn’t attend a White House Halloween party dressed as Osama Bin Laden. In these instances, conventional wisdom seems pretty much spot on.

As does conventional politics when it comes to the practice of serving out one’s full term as governor unless some compelling reason – serious illness, election to higher office, etc. –intercedes. If you quit the post you were elected to without such a compelling reason, you become a quitter.

So when Sarah Palin said in her nonsensical speech on Friday that her decision to resign was consistent with her commitment to “no more conventional politics as usual,” I suppose she expected Americans to accept without scrutiny a slogan that is sometimes a positive as something that is self-evidently right. Sorry Sarah, but if politics as usual means not quitting your job mid-term, then sign me up as a fan of politics as usual.  

It is impossible for one to look at Palin’s July 3 resignation announcement as sincere and genuine. She is not resigning at the end of the month because she thinks her resignation is in the best interest of her state, as she claimed Friday. She is resigning because she thinks her resignation is in the best interest of Sarah Palin – and, perhaps, her family. The rambling and incoherence and silly reasoning that defined her speech was nothing more than a failed attempt to bolster a weak justification for getting out of a commitment she no longer wants to keep. We have all seen such sorry justifications before and probably have offered a few of our own, though doubtfully to get ourselves out of a commitment as significant as governor of a state.

That said, one can certainly understand why Palin would decide that she is tired of the spotlight after the attacks she has endured in the press and in popular culture, attacks that were often unfair. It is completely understandable that Palin, with all her weighty family obligations, may have determined that she can no longer juggle both her family responsibilities and her governmental duties. If that’s the case, she should have said so.

But if Palin wants to depart center stage because of the nastiness of politics, then she shouldn’t expect American voters to elect her to higher office again. Or, if the real reason she resigned is so she can spend more time working on a 2012 presidential campaign, her quitting on Alaskans without compelling cause should be a disqualifier.  

As of now, pundits are only left to guess what motivated Palin’s resignation. Palin’s baffling move led some to speculate that her resignation was driven by some yet-to-be-discovered scandal, though no one seems to have a strong idea, much less evidence, of what that may be.

Ironically, if Palin is to have any chance at being a legitimate candidate for the Republican nomination in 2012, or ever, it may only be possible if there is an actual scandal or compelling issue that she is hiding. If she resigned because (God forbid) she or someone in her family is ill or because she discovered that Todd Palin was unfaithful, this may provide Sarah Palin another chance down the road to enter politics. It would be understandable in such circumstances, after all, that Palin would step down in order to rebuild her family, or nurse a family member or herself back to health.

Let me emphasize that there is absolutely no evidence – no evidence – of any such circumstance, and as far as I know there aren’t even rumors. But the irresponsibility of Palin’s decision to quit on Alaska for the spurious reasons she gave on Friday presents an odd situation. Only if an actual scandal is being hidden from the public, or a hidden tragedy, could Palin actually salvage her presumed political ambition to be a legitimate presidential contender. I, for one, hope there is no hidden tragedy, and this has nothing to do with the fact that I was never a big fan of the idea of a President Palin to begin with.

As of now, from the limited information we have to go on, the political prognosis for Sarah Barracuda is grim, as it should be after Friday. Unless the political jaws of life come to the rescue, we must bury Sarah Palin’s legitimate presidential ambitions. Born on August 27, 2008, they died in the Alaskan tundra July 3, 2009. 

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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