Sarah Palin Resignation and FNC "Headlines" a la Jay Leno

During Fox News Channel's Saturday "Bulls and Bears" show, there was an early discussion of the surprise Sarah Palin resignation (see yesterday's post). The FNC ticker at the bottom of the screen displayed this blurb: "Palin resigns as Alaska gov; great news for US economy!" I somehow doubt that it was intended to read this way; I and others would read it to mean that the one thing that's been holding the US economy down is Sarah Palin's being Alaska governor.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, Fox News Channel has had a slobbering love affair with all things Sarah Palin. I caught a few minutes of Greta Van Susteren show; there was a guest host because Greta was on vacation, but Greta called in to give a bleeding-heart conservative defense of Sarah Palin and all the media attacks, the "vindicated" ethics charges, and do we really need to revisit the Letterman Alex Rodriguez joke from a few weeks back? (It does look like Sarah Palin milked that politically for all it was worth; I saw one poll had her favorability ratings back to the middle-40's.) I pointed out a couple of troubling items about the Palin-Van Susteren relationship in my last miscellany column, which I think compromises her professional ethics standards as a television journalist.

What the Fox News blurb ("great news for US economy") was intended to reflect was speculation that Sarah Palin intends to start a crusade spreading the message of low taxes/low federal spending (which they conclude would be good for the economy). My guess is that Sarah Palin has been following the spontaneous tea parties and realizes that the GOP and her potential opponents in a 2012 bid for the Presidency have not been able to attract the imagination of the protesters, many of whom are Democrat, and she figures that she'll be able to reach to them.

However, it may not play out in the way that Fox News expects. For instance, it's entirely possible that what Sarah Palin means by a "new direction" is heading a third political party, much the same way Ross Perot in 1992 exploited Bush's vulnerability on his conservative right blank, furious over his breaking a pledge of "no new taxes". I expect Sarah Palin to play up her outsider image, taking on the "corrupt" GOP establishment, being a Washington outsider, and also strike a populist message, pointing out she's faced big problems, like the big oil companies in Alaska, and got them to agree on an oil pipeline project. She will hype the fact she was able to increase the annual payment to Alaskan citizens (whom pay no state income tax), of course made possible by $150/barrel oil, and hint she can return more of the other citizens' money back to them as well.

In fact, it's fairly clear that Sarah Palin doesn't have a realistic shot at the 2012 Presidential nomination for the GOP. Huckabee has a strong appeal to the same social conservative base without the baggage of Palin's polarizing politics. In fact, Sarah Palin's recent nominee for the position of state attorney general was defeated with strong bipartisan opposition, unprecedented in Alaskan history. Huckabee comes across as amiable and competent; chances are, assuming Romney and Huckabee run again in 2012, Romney will be running on a competent-government and pro-business platform, playing up his ability to win in blue state Massachusetts. Assuming no new candidates emerge--and as I mentioned in a past post, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels would be a strong contender--Romney would easily win New Hampshire, and with Huckabee and Palin splitting the social conservative vote, Romney could essentially replicate McCain's 2008 path to the nomination.

I don't think that most Republicans want a rerun of the 2008 election, and Sarah Palin would go into 2012 with a lot of baggage from that campaign. I also don't think in a race widely selected to be among experienced governors, a first-term governor quitting with more than a third of her term left isn't going to be well-received. I mean, one could argue if she was going to resign as governor, last fall's general campaign would have been the time to do it. It just comes across as deserting ship just when most states are facing difficult choices with the worst recession in decades. This is the time when governors win medals, not last year, when Governor Palin should have been saving some of those windfall energy revenues for a rainy day. Note this is not the first time she's resigned from statewide office, which I think would raise a red flag for the average voter. I mean, if she can't handle the problems on her plate as the governor of a state of 600,000 people, how can she possibly handle the immensely more difficult issues facing the Presidency of the United States? It's not just that, but apparently she didn't notify in advance any of the people whom must deal with her in that role--the lieutenant governor, the Alaskan Congressional leadership, and the state legislative leadership. It's all well and good that Palin's family approved of the idea of her resigning, but I think swerving other public officials and the people of Alaska borders on irresponsible leadership.

I was particularly perturbed by Palin's patently disingenuous political spin on making her resignation from office try to seem virtuous, given her decision not to seek reelection, saying that all she would be doing is milking her contract as governor for all its worth as a "lame duck". Say WHAT? In what way is serving out the final third of her term under more trying circumstances than over the first half of her term "milking" her contract as governor? Is service over the final third of a term "less worthy" than service over the first two-thirds? In fact, it could be argued that a "lame duck" period is probably when a politician is most motivated to vote an issue for the public interest, because he's not worried about the repercussions on his bid for reelection. No publicly elected official is guaranteed an unopposed reelection (in fact, a Virginia governor cannot succeed himself), and many elected officials announce their decision not to stand for reelection without resigning; is Governor Palin seriously suggesting there is something morally wrong with a public official sitting out the remainder of his term, if he's not seeking reelection? It's one thing if a public official isn't doing work on behalf of the people and drawing a paycheck. Quitting in the middle of a tough recession is equivalent of deserting the army in the middle of battle.

But going back to the idea of Sarah Palin possibly heading a revamped Reform/Independent or Tea Party Party: First of all, Obama as the incumbent will be tough to beat, and the last thing we need is handing Obama a divide-and-conquer path to an easy reelection. Second, Sarah Palin is simply not credible as the alternative to Obama's tax-and-spend agenda. Other than some symbolic steps Palin milked during the national campaign (putting the state plane on eBay, staffing reductions at the governor's mansion, etc.), the fact is that as a mayor and as a governor, Sarah Palin did manage to get her fair share of federal dollars and ended up getting all but a token 3% reduction from the Obama so-called stimulus bill with some $930M available. She can talk about tax cuts--but Obama is willing to meet any Republican tax cut to most American workers, plus raise it, including means-tested refundable tax rebates. She could renew McCain's call to reduce uncompetitive business tax brackets, but, in fact, she raised taxes on energy companies in Alaska. To reduce federal dollars, where is she going to find the dollars to balance $2T deficits? There's a reason Obama only managed to find a $17B amount of cuts.

Today Sarah Palin made it clear that she had zero tolerance for liberal bloggers in Alaska speculating she was resigning over prospective federal charges. She spoke of a national calling to speak out against government intervention in the marketplace and for a stronger national defense, federal spending restraints, and energy independence. Whereas I am sure that she is looking to book some highly-compensated speeches, this agenda is clearly aimed at the Obama Administration, but all of the potential challengers to Obama share the same type positions.