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Shoe Watch

post from Talking Points Memo on 03 July 2009 05:17:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Any stabs at identifying the other shoe that is certain to be dropping soon?In other news, it seems our Top Seven Sarah Palin Moments of the last year slideshow may need some revising.[...]

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Palin Resigns, Can't Finish What She Starts

post from What IS Right for Virginia on 03 July 2009 05:14:00 PM. © What IS Right for Virginia

So Sarah Palin can't finish the job she ran, and was elected to. The New York Times says her press conference was "rambling". Does that surprise anyone?

video details and more

?As I thought about this announcement that I would not seek re-election, I thought about how much fun other governors have as lame ducks: They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions,? she said.

?I?m not going to put Alaskans through that,? she continued. ?I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That?s not how I?m wired. I?m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.?

So Palin just quits, because of what? I guess the running of the state of Alaska isn't important enough to warrant completing her job. Then again, I'll bet there will be few tears shed over her quitting.

Read The Full Article:
http://southeastvirginia.blogspot.com/2009/07/palin-resigns-cant-finish-what-she.
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Are We All In This Together

post from Everyday Citizen on 03 July 2009 05:12:34 PM. © Everyday Citizen

The additional Kansas State budget cuts are painful. A lot of ordinary people will be hurt by[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/07/are_we_all_in_this_together.html

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TX-Gov: Ronnie Earle moves toward gubernatorial
run

post from Daily Kos on 03 July 2009 05:06:38 PM. © Daily Kos

Remember Ronnie Earle? He was the Travis County District Attorney who indicted Tom DeLay back in 2004.

Former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle inched closer to seeking the Democratic nomination for governor Thursday when he filed a one-page form with the Texas Ethics Commission designating himself as his campaign treasurer.

Earle did not state on the form which office he would seek but said in an interview, "I have made no decision, and I won't for a while, but if I run, it will probably be for governor."

Designating a treasurer allows him to start raising money for a bid, although he said he has no fundraising events planned.

"If somebody is interested in donating, I would certainly be in position to have all the I's dotted and the T's crossed," Earle said.

He did not give a timetable for making his decision.

Earle is the first serious Democrat to consider a gubernatorial bid, and given his cred with Democratic voters, he should motivate many to participate in the Democratic primary.

This is extra relevant because Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is hoping to attract Democratic and independent support in her own GOP gubernatorial primary against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. Texas primaries are open.

But with Democrats suddenly having a relevant primary of their own, that narrows Hutchison's potential voter pool considerably. And with Perry doing a bang-up job of building allegiance among the teabagging/secessionist crowd, Hutchison's job would get a lot more difficult.

Her current plans seem to be to quit late this year to trigger a May 2010 special election (though she has made no official announcement). The NRSC is loathe to defend that seat in a low-turnout special election, and has been pushing for her wait long enough to eliminate the need for the special. But her electoral prospects are already precarious, and they just got a bit more.

Her best bet would be to resign her Senate seat immediately, get home, and start campaigning hard. But that would trigger a special election this November. And as you can imagine, that would put Senate Republicans in an even bigger hole (though Hutchison would be replaced with a Perry appointment pending the special election). So what does ol' Kay do? Look out for herself and come home, ditching her useless seat in the Senate, or does she throw her fellow Republicans a lifeline and hold out until this fall, further endangering her gubernatorial prospects?

She should look out for number one.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/6yP3JB0KMsg/-TX-Gov:-Ronnie-Earle-
moves-toward-gubernatorial-run

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Krauthammer voices the Beltway view: Palin is
'not a serious candidate'

post from Crooks and Liars on 03 July 2009 05:00:19 PM. © Crooks and Liars

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! DOWNLOADS: (78)
PLAYS: (428)

UPDATE: Sarah Palin is stepping down as Governor of Alaska. Details here.

Quick! Someone alert the Red State Army Strike Force! Republican backstabber on Aisle 26 of Fox News!

We mentioned the other day that, if nothing else, the recent Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin made clear that the Beltway Villagers' view of Sarah Palin is "road kill in the rear-view mirror".

Charles Krauthammer on Fox the other day drove that point home by completely dismissing her as a potential candidate:

Krauthammer: Now, as to Palin, I agree entirely with what Mara [Liasson] said -- she is, she has star power without any doubt, she has an extremely devoted following, but she is not a serious candidate for the presidency.
She had to go home and study and spend a lot of the time on issues with which she was not adept last year. And she hasn't.
She has to stop speaking in cliches and platitudes. It won't work. It could work for eight weeks if you're the No. 2 candidate, as she was last year. But even so, she got singed a lot in that campaign. You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you?re running for the presidency.

Interestingly, even Allahpundit at HotAir was inclined to agree.

Surely the RedState Strike Force, as the action wing of "Operation Leper", will be descending upon these hapless backstabbers in short order.

Hey, whatever happened to "Operation Leper" anyway?

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/krauthammer-voices-beltway-view-pali

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Like Everyone Else, We're Wondering WHY Palin
Suddenly Resigned As Governor Of Alaska

post from DownWithTyranny! on 03 July 2009 05:00:00 PM. © DownWithTyranny!

video details and more

Like Dave Neiwert in his book The Eliminationists, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that there is a real problem in this country with domestic right wing terrorism. This week they reported on 75 plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since the carnage in Oklahoma City. Few Republican elected officials-- exceptions being lunatic fringe extremists like Helen Chenoweth (R-ID), Steve Stockman (R-TX), David Duke (R-LA)-- embrace these terrorist groups overtly and publicly. Many in the party, on the other hand, have learned about winking and nodding and using coded phrases to make clear where their sympathies lie. Generally speaking, in Idaho, if you don't want to be associated with racists and right-wing terrorists you join the Democrats, not the Republicans. When the national Democrat Party declared it would no longer coddle racists, white southerners defected en masse to the GOP, led by hate-filled right-wing Democrats like Strom Thurmond (SC), Jesse Helms (NC), Phil Gramm (TX), and Dick Shelby (AL). Most Democrats breathed a sign of relief and were happy to see them go-- wondering why a few, like Zell Miller (GA) and Dan Boren (OK) stayed-- while the Republican Party not only courted them and welcomed them with open arms, they transformed the entire nature of their party's ideology to accommodate racism and eliminationism.

John McCain never felt especially comfortable with leading this parade, but, in a nod in that dark direction, he picked someone to run as his VP, Sarah Palin, for whom it came very natural. By all means read the account by CBS News of Sarah Palin's relationship, as the Republican vice presidential nominee, with the secessionist extremists of the Alaska Independence Party, a party she went beyond winking and nodding at-- and a party of which her husband Todd was a member for seven years. Palin didn't like it one bit when Neiwert exposed her extremism on CNN and she went screeching to McCain's campaign manager to make it go away. They said they couldn't change history and suggested she stonewall and avoid the topic by claiming, however incongruously, that Todd loves America.

Of course, the question on everyone's mind-- since Palin suddenly announced that she was resigning as governor of Alaska-- is why? And why so sudden? Which scandal is it that caused her political collapse? Is the kick back scandal enough to have sent her packing? In Alaska? Remember, even in the midst of huge public shitstorms and scandals beyond what anyone could be expected to recover from, far right extremists David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), Mark Sanford (R-SC) and John Ensign (R-NV) have stuck with the GOP scandal mantra-- unless they catch you, and photograph you, with a live boy or a dead girl, just hang in there and the GOP base will forget. I think in Palin's case we can be sure it was neither a live boy nor a dead girl. So what made her resign? Bill Kristol-- along with other delusional wingnut true believers-- thinks it's to prepare for a presidential run in 2012.

[S]he's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues - and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early - but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

Other wingnuts, every bit as extreme and delusional as Kristol, are less optimistic. Few people outside of the lunatic fringe take Palin-worshipper Jonah Goldberg seriously but he's already declared that she's blown it. If most Americans feel they need a hot bath after reading a typical Goldberg screed, Palin fans find him as right as rain: "There?s a reason why the Left and much of the media establishment hated you from day one. Some hated you out of the fear that you might stop Barack Obama?s unfolding coronation. Others because you seemed to expose the snobbery, arrogance, and ideological pieties of elite feminism. Your beauty, your status as a working mom, your blue-collar husband, your bravery in taking on the political establishment in Alaska, your proud status as a pro-lifer and mother of a special-needs child: All of these things were-- and are-- deeply threatening to a secular left-wing cultural elite."

Even loony Jonah admits that most Americans see Palin as a laughing stock but he doesn't think it matters at all because, when push comes to shove he believes that Sarah Palin is "the 'It Girl' of the GOP." As opposed to... Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell? Another disappointed rightist in another far right GOP propaganda throw-away seems ready to start weeping:

Sarah Palin's resignation is an appalling dereliction of duty and a highly cynical move to set herself up for a presidental run for which she is manifestly unqualified... It is an absolute dereliction of duty to quit mid-term. When you run for office, you are making a promise to your constituents to serve out your term (unless you get elected to higher office or have one of the aforementioned compelling reasons not to do so). To do otherwise is, in effect, to break your word. It is a sign of a lack of integrity.

...What Sarah Palin did today was get out before the real challenges of the job (whatever challenges there are for such an easy job) really rear their heads. The going got tough in terms of spurious ethics charges against her, and she took off. That's cowardly. That's not sign of staying power. It's a sign of wanting to get out while the getting is good, in order to become a full-time candidate for a presidential race that won't culminate for 3 1/2 more years. It's a little too calculating, by half-- or more.

I just listened to her speech announcing her decision, and found it singularly unimpressive. "This was a rambling, bombastic, self-centered, 'poor me' kind of speech." That's how Mike Carey of the Anchorage Daily News just described her speech on Fox News. I agree. He then said it was, darn, I already can't remember if he said it was "pitiful" or "pathetic," but it was some word like that. Again, I agree. It was a speech in which she clearly made a bid for a national audience-- not a very effective bid, but a transparent one-- but didn't adequately explain to the people of Alaska why she was relinquishing her duty... Statesmen hang tough. Sarah Palin is cutting and running.

The GOP official who was i-chatting with her just before she announced her decision, Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, claims she sees herself as a national figure too big for a backwater like Alaska. Meanwhile, Time's Mark Halperin offers 10 possible reasons:

1. Her political standing has slipped enough that she could have lost a re-election bid if she tried to retain her current office.
2. Her political standing has slipped enough that even if she had run and won, she would have likely been bloodied in the race, maybe even in a primary.
3. Even more ethics complaints (many frivolous) would have been filed against her.
4. She's got a book to write.
5. She's got a special needs baby to raise.
6. It is logistically impossible to run for president as the sitting governor of Alaska-- because of flight times. (Not hard: *impossible*)
7. She couldn't truly explore her money-making potential as an incumbent governor.
8. She couldn't truly explore her media potential as an incumbent governor.
9. The legislature has turned so much against her that the job wasn't much fun any more.
10. If she wants to be the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2012, she needs to spend more time raising money, establishing her international and national expertise, and traveling the Lower 48. And she needs to start now.

Although Palin has spewn out a dozen excuses and accusations for resigning-- from it's best for Alaska to it's best for our troops-- perhaps the DNC may be more on target than anyone else: she's a fucking fruitcake.

Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way-- her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.

I'm going to bet, though, that we haven't heard the end of this and that in the next few weeks another shoe is going to drop that will make it abundantly clear why Sarah Palin couldn't have remained in the governor's office even if she wanted to.

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/07/like-everyone-else-were-wondering-why
.html

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Just What She Said

post from Talking Points Memo on 03 July 2009 04:58:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Here's the transcript of Gov. Palin's rambling resignation statement.[...]

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aid.php

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Nothing Suspicious About That

Andrea Mitchell says sources close to Gov. Palin say she is now "out of politics for good."[...]

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ous_about_that.php

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Palins Abrupt Resignation: It Would be
Irresponsible Not to Speculate

The same week she is blasted by staffers of her former running mate, John McCain, Sarah Palin has resigned[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/03/palin-is-there-a-scandal-or-is-she-j
ust-abandoning-her-office-and-constituents/

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Palin to resign as governor

Update (12:50PM) -- "America is looking north to the future." Must be running.

Update (12:45PM) -- Video of Palin's statement just now. We'll post it soon, but the birds making noises over her announcement are hilarious. And her claim that she's "not dropping the ball" is just as funny. The decision, she says, "has been in the works for awhile." For a while? She hasn't even been governor for awhile! Eight months ago, she thought she was the next Vice President of the U.S.

And she sure sounds like she's running for President. Which must mean she's a moron.

Update (12:43PM) -- There's also a discussion going on in RandySF's recommended diary.

Update (12:40PM) -- A Fox anchor's take:

She's quitting as a one-term governor who is very young and has been ridiculed by some as just not ready for prime time.

Only one thing to add to that. One-term is too generous. She's quitting as a one-half term governor. And she's quitting after less than a year on the national stage.

Unless she's a total moron, there's no way she's running for president. Then again, maybe she is a total moron.

Original post: Sarah Palin is stepping down as governor at the end of July, after just 30 months on the job. KTUU Alaska:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor's Picnic at Pionner Park in Fairbanks on Saturday, July 25, Palin said.

There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.