Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's abrupt announcement that she was quitting her job unleashed widespread speculation: Some said she was ready to launch a 2012 bid for president. Others suggested she had destroyed her chances with her startling decision.
Palin, speaking from the backyard of her lakefront home in Wasilla, Alaska, said Friday that she had ruled out seeking a second term and, for the good of the state, would step down at the end of the month and hand the job to her lieutenant governor.
In disjointed and cryptic remarks, she intimated that she would stay active in national politics. "We know we can effect positive change outside government at this point in time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities," she said, flanked by her husband, Todd, and members of their family -- whom she described as exuberant supporters of her resignation.
Many took that to mean a full-fledged run for the Republican nomination, without the encumbrance of her office and the difficulty of navigating a national campaign while running a state thousands of miles from the action.
But the fact that Palin, 45, will vacate her elected post without finishing the four-year term -- which would have bolstered a political resume already thin enough that it hampered her 2008 bid for vice president -- led some analysts to suggest that she had badly damaged herself, perhaps irretrievably.
"I always thought after the race what she needed to do was go back to Alaska and be substantive, show she's got a grasp of government and work for the good of the folks back home. This seems to be the exact opposite," said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent campaign analyst in Washington. "This makes her subject to the criticism that for whatever reason -- she gets tired, bored, criticized too much -- she just walks away."
Palin experienced a rapid ascent after Sen. John McCain of Arizona plucked her from relative obscurity last summer to serve as his running mate. She was a huge hit at the Republican National Convention, delivering a tenacious attack on the Democratic ticket in a fetching, folksy manner.
But her image quickly frayed after some disastrous TV interviews turned her into a punch line for late-night comics; Tina Fey's impersonation of Palin on "Saturday Night Live" became a cultural touchstone and a burden the candidate carried all fall.
