Analyst says Palin could be done with politics
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's decision to step down during her first term could signal that she's done with elective office, a Virginia political analyst says.
"You shouldn't dismiss that possibility if she's fed up, and that came across at the press conference," the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato said last night.
If she does plan future campaigns, Sabato thinks Palin has made a major error. "This will prove very useful to her opponent -- she's up and quit the only statewide office she's ever held, in midterm. That's not much of a qualification if you're running for president," Sabato said.
"The Harry Truman rule applies: 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.' Once you're out of the kitchen it's hard to get back in."
Palin campaigned in Virginia four times last year as the running mate of Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
"Bob McDonnell is sure this was a very tough decision for Governor Palin and her family," said Tucker Martin, a spokesman for Virginia's Republican gubernatorial nominee, who served as co-chairman of the McCain-Palin campaign in Virginia.
"He wishes Governor Palin the very best as she moves forward. He is certain she will continue to play a prominent and positive role in American politics in the years ahead," Martin said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement that Palin is "an important and galvanizing voice" in the GOP and will help the party's gubernatorial candidates this fall in Virginia and New Jersey, according to The Washington Post.
Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia, said, "We wish her luck on her future endeavors and think there's little doubt that she will have an impact on policy discussions in the future."
Palin campaigned with McCain on Sept. 10 at Van Dyck Park in Fairfax City. On Oct. 13, Palin joined McCain in Virginia Beach for a rally, then appeared solo before a crowd estimated at 20,000 in a field at Richmond International Raceway.
On Oct. 27, she held rallies in Leesburg, Fredericksburg and Salem, and stopped by a gourmet deli in Ashland.
On Nov. 1, an estimated 8,000 McCain-Palin supporters spent Saturday night at the Deep Run High School football field to back the GOP ticket in western Henrico.
Contact Andrew Cain at (804) 649-6645 or
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Staff writer Frank Green contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
Greta, I thought we were done here. But apparently not. Bush still said to go about your daily lives, including shopping. That was not the attitude in the country at the time. People wanted to mobilize, wanted to contribute, wanted to act on the events of 9-11, the deadliest day in American history since the Civil War. What were we told to do, basically nothing, just go about your daily routine. Being told, almost like a police officer saying “Move along, nothing to see hear.“
And you want to make accusations of being opportunistic, at the very moment Bush was making that speech people in his White House were already planning how to use 9-11 as an excuse to invade Iraq, something the Neo-cons had been pinning for since the Clinton administration. On the evening of 9-11 Karl Rove was already advising the President how that tragic event could be used as a political weapon to push through certain policies. Don Rumsfeld complained that Iraq should not be off the table because “there are not enough good targets in Afghanistan”. NSA Rice and Dick Cheney were traveling the country fear mongering about “the smoking gun of a mushroom cloud over an American city”, and doing nothing to dispel the mistaken belief of many Americans that Saddam was involved in 9-11. If I may paraphrase your comments, Bush took us down the yellow brick road to a preemptive war, built upon false pretenses, based in political ideology, that has cost over 100,000 Iraqi lives, nearly 5,000 American lives, created over 2 million refugees…and a “financial OZ” costing in the trillions. So I guess it’s better to spend money on killing Iraqi’s for no reason than to spend the same amount of money in America to help a failing infrastructure. But at least Halliburton made a ton of cash.
I wanted to address the question of CW’s “dichotomy.“
George Bush in fact never encouraged the American citizens to “go shopping” in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11.
As part of his lengthy post 9/11 speech he among many other encouragments urged the population to engage in “Continued participation and confidence in the American economy.“ That statement is what has widely been interpreted as the idiotic “go shopping” admonition.
In his November “Let’s Roll” speech he makes his intentions crystal clear.
“People are going about their daily lives, working and shopping and playing, worshipping at churches and synagogues and mosques, going to movies and to baseball games.
Life in America is going forward, and as the fourth grader who wrote me knew, that is the ultimate repudiation of terrorism.“
It was actually Tony Blair of GB who actually encouraged his citizens to go shopping.
But his intention was also clear to anyone with a servicable intelligence.
Go about your lives in the most normal way possible.
Mr. Obama and his crew of “never let a good crisis go to waste” opportunists are taking us down the yellow brick road to financial OZ.
McConnell should invide Sarah Palin to come to Virginia to campaign beside him. She would be an asset to any campaign.
Finally the joke Palin is over. She contributed nothing to this country
except to polarize it. She used her family to shed light on herself. She is now in the dustbin of history, a bad memory.
Robo
Same to you!
Very interesting about the swastika.
Greta, I don’t recall any Obama supporters wearing Nazi tee shirts at the inauguration. That was the issue I had with your statement. If people were wearing Nazi tee shirts at the inauguration it is hard to imagine they were Obama supporters. The only context I could imagine them using a Nazi tee shirt in is some form of Bush hating. If that was the case, then to he!! with those people. No doubt it was a small minority. Despite all the failures of the Bush administration, I would never condone the use of Nazi propaganda to denounce his policies.
As far as deficit spending, if Obama doubles or triples the deficit while in office I will denounce him also and admit err for supporting him. With the current state of the economy I think we would have had similar deficit spending from Sen. McCain. I am concerned about continued deficit spending. In retrospect I long for the fiscal vision of Bush I and Clinton. Both recognized the danger of a large national debt. Bush I promised no new taxes, and paid the price for doing what he knew was right, breaking a campaign promise and raising taxes to keep us from borrowing too much. Clinton was able to take advantage of the Bush tax increases and leave us with a budget surplus. I find it so appropriate that the two of them have teamed up on humanitarian efforts.
Interesting side note. In his book ‘Comet’ (non-fiction), Carl Sagan points out the use of the swastika symbol by many cultures throughout the world from neo-lithic times onward. It is seen in ancient paleo-sites around the world. His hypothesis was that possibly a comet in ancient times had an orbit that gave a head on view from Earth and that four tails of the comet made a sort of swastika in the sky as the comet rotated. Of course it is only a hypothesis, but one that sparks the imagination and gives a much more benign significance to a symbol that was hijacked by evil.
Speaking of lights in the sky, hope you have a good Independence Day, at least what’s left of it.
CWB717-Enjoyed your last post.But one question and I promise I will retire the subject.
Why was your comment about Palin supporters “screams” of ‘Kill him’
acceptable and mine about the Obama supporters was not? I saw that spectacle with my own eyes on my own tv. i am totally confident that if you were to take the time you could find the video. Not that you know me but I would never write such a thing if I had not actually seen it for myself. I am inserting this after reading your last post. The one i did not enjoy so much.
And poor Sarah’s message was garbled and you did need a psychiatrist to interpret it. And everybody and his brother seems to have very definite ideas as to why she quit.
Just read all the posts here.
I thought she was trying to say that she was being seriously hampered in doing her job because of all ethics complaints that were being thrown at her. that the cost of defending herself had gotten prohibitive and that she saw no end in sight.
and as far as the national debt goes Reagan may have tripled it in 8 years and Bush may have doubled it in 8 years but Mr. Obama has done the damage in just 5 months. And I might add he is just getting started.
And in this country I hope that we never get to the point where any president has to help the rich get richer. Of course this one could help everybody get a lot poorer.
fedup, you can’t help but wonder if she is stepping down to get out in front of “the other shoe falling”. I kinda’ hope that isn’t the case just so all those Palin lovers can have their faces rubbed in the fact that she made those comments about the “who do you want picking up the phone at 3 a.m. in the White House”, yet she couldn’t even stomach media scrutiny. I mean, how perfect would that be?
Greta, I know I said I didn’t want to dignify your Nazi comment with a response, but I can’t help but to point out, that while Palin riling up supporters at rallies to the point of people yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” did happen, “Obama supporters wearing Nazi tee shirts on the mall in Washington DC. And shouting their support and approval of our new leader.“ did NOT happen. But hey, if that’s how you feel about people who wanted to witness history (the first black President elected less than 50 years after segregation and Jim Crow), that’s your right.
There is an interesting dichotomy between what Obama and ‘W’ asked of the nation in a time of crisis. While the nation looked to ‘W’ after 9-11 wanting to know what he wanted of us to help, his response was to say go shopping. And boy did we ever, we bought all sorts of consumer goods and houses with money we didn’t have and lead ourselves right into a huge financial crisis. Meanwhile, Obama asks us to be willing to make some sacrifices, heaven forbid we do that in a country with such an over abundance of everything, people respond by calling him a socialist, communist, Nazi, anti-christ, etc. But I suppose that falls right in line with a nation where half the populace has no better than the equivalent of an 8th grade education, where one third is obese from over eating, and the right wing spouts off quotes from books by a hateful woman like Ayn Rand.
Failin Palin Friday news dumped us. (Release hot story when NOBODY gives a hoot about news, especially when traveling etc on a national holiday). Her legal team is already threatening to sue anyone who speaks of the federal investigation.
The other shoe will fall and it will be a real stinker!
We are witnessing the unraveling of “a musher who quits”.
You got me on Biden as far as “foot in mouth” syndrome goes. He has quite a reputation for that. Funny though, he hasn’t been so weak in the stomach to let media scrutiny of his gaffes to cause him to step down.
When you say ask “What if she was actually telling the truth?“, what truth do you refer to? During her rambling and often incoherent press conference, so gave no real indication of why she was stepping down, or what her future plans would be. She did whine about the media coverage she has received though. So one can’t help but wonder if she just doesn’t have the stomach for modern American politics.
I don’t really care if she turns up again. Her decision to step down only served to hurt an already damaged political “career”. Catharsis is a temporary emotion anyways. As far as “Obama supporters wearing Nazi tee shirts on the mall in Washington DC. And shouting their support and approval of our new leader.“ goes, I won’t even dignify that comment with a response.
Now spendathons on the other hand do bother me. I, like many others are concerned with budget deficits. We are in terrible financial times and Obama’s administration is using an old fiscal policy of Keynesian economics to try and pull us out of it. It has worked before, who knows if it will work this time. But as a contrast, Reagan tripled our national debt, but is worshiped like a god by the right, and ‘W’ doubled the debt. So we aren’t to that point yet with Obama, and at least he has much better cause to do it, rather than solely for the purpose to help the rich get richer.
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