Weary Palin sought to regain control

Source: Pioneer Press

And her future? A risky road is ahead

From wire reports

Updated: 07/04/2009

Why did Sarah Palin step down?

Theories abound. But some of the people closest to the Alaska governor say she wanted to regain control of a political script that slipped out of her hands the moment she burst onto the national stage. She also wanted to shield herself and her family from attacks that seem to have been aimed permanently at them in the 311 days since Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., announced her as his running mate, according to some former campaign aides and other advisers who speak regularly with Palin or her husband, Todd.

The Sarah Palin who stood outside her Wasilla, Alaska, lakefront home Friday to surrender her term with 18 months remaining appeared vulnerable and anything but the pugnacious hockey mom and combative candidate who Americans came to either adore or admonish. The woman who said she would never blink suddenly tired of what she deemed the "superficial, wasteful political blood sport."

So she quit.

Yet Palin's vulnerability masks her firepower, ambition and strong will, advisers said. Not one to fit comfortably into convention — and not comfortable being a victim, either — Palin spoke Friday as if she was rolling the dice and betting on herself. She presented herself as a game-changer stepping onto a stage of her own making.

What that stage may be remains the big question looming over national politics this weekend, and advisers said she is truly undecided about running for president in 2012, or ever. But for the first time, she recently solicited money for her political action committee.
And Saturday she strongly suggested that she intends to remain a player in national politics.

"I've never thought I needed a title before one's name to forge progress in America," Palin wrote in a message to supporters on her Facebook page. "I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint. I hope you will join me. Now is the time to rebuild and help our nation achieve greatness!"

What is certain, however, is that Palin has tired of being governor — of working with a legislature increasingly intent on blocking her agenda, of commuting 4 1/2 hours from Wasilla to the state Capitol in Juneau, of watching her family be tabloid fodder.

This spring, as Palin was weighing whether to run for re-election in 2010, she turned to John Coale, a prominent Washington lawyer. He had helped her establish a political action committee and has become her political consigliore of sorts.

"She asked me, 'Well, what do you think all this is? Why are all these people attacking me?' " Coale said. "I said to her, 'Look, that's what happens. They did it to Hillary (Rodham Clinton) and Hillary just pushed through it. It's not going to really stop. ... You just have to ignore it and move on.' "

But, Coale added, "She couldn't ignore the hits on the kids. She said, 'It brought out the Mamma Grizzly in me.' She acted like a mother grizzly bear when her cubs were being attacked."

However, if some of her supporters are correct in surmising what she is doing — turning full-time to preparing herself, after a tough year, for a presidential campaign in 2012 — it represents a huge gamble, even by the standards of a politician whose short career has been shaped by huge gambles.

For some Republicans, the comparison that came to mind was Richard Nixon, when he announced in 1962 that he was leaving politics for good after losing the governor's race in California, two years after a failed White House bid.

In fact, Nixon used the next four years to quietly refurbish his image, building ties with the conservative wing that was becoming ascendant in the Republican Party, ingratiating himself with Republican senators and candidates for governor by campaigning on their behalf and becoming better schooled in issues.

Assuming her departure does reflect a strategic decision to prepare for a presidential campaign — Republicans have been wondering why she dropped out so abruptly — Palin may be looking to the next few years to do what Nixon did to prepare for his successful run for the White House in 1968.

Yet Palin is in a different place than was Nixon — or any other politician who has gone the rehabilitation route. She is viewed disparagingly by many of the elites in her party, no matter how many conservative Republicans have flocked to her. She has grown increasingly unpopular in her own state and nationally; 43 percent of respondents in a CNN Poll in May viewed her unfavorably, compared with 21 percent when McCain chose her as his running mate last August.

If one of Palin's goals was to erase the perception of her as flighty — a perception encouraged by some McCain lieutenants in the rough aftermath of the failed campaign — it certainly could not have helped to stage an out-of-the-blue announcement.

"I can't imagine that anyone saw this coming," said former state Sen. Kim Elton, a Democrat who is now director of Alaska affairs for the secretary of the federal Department of Interior. "I think the consensus in Alaska was she had her eye on the prize and that the way to get that was being governor."

The Washington Post and New York Times contributed to this analysis.