FORMER REPUBLICAN vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has signalled that she will seek a national political role following her abrupt resignation as governor of Alaska.
In a Facebook message, Ms Palin explained her decision as a response to “a higher calling” to pursue her conservative vision for the United States.
“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,” she wrote.
The governor took the political world by surprise when she announced last Friday that she would leave office on July 25th, almost 18 months before the end of her term. Most commentators initially suggested that her decision to leave the governorship early would damage any hopes she might have of becoming the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
Others hinted that Ms Palin’s announcement at a hastily arranged news conference outside her home in Wasilla was prompted by an investigation into alleged corruption.
“How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country,” Ms Palin said on Facebook.
“And though it’s honourable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.”
Ms Palin’s lawyer has threatened to sue any news organisation that publishes “defamatory” accusations of corruption against her and the FBI has confirmed that it is not investigating her.
The governor has surprised political commentators at every turn in her career since, as mayor of suburban Wasilla, she came within 200 votes of defeating a conservative state senator in the race to be the Republican candidate for Alaska’s lieutenant governor in 2002. She became an overnight sensation in Alaska, presenting herself as a down-to-earth hockey mom driven by deep religious faith and common-sense values. The former beauty queen was appointed to Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission but resigned after accusing a fellow commissioner of corruption.
She defeated the state’s entrenched Republican establishment to become the party’s candidate for governor in 2006 and swept to power with an agenda to reform ethics standards and increase taxes on oil companies drilling in the Arctic.
Ms Palin was almost unknown on the national stage when John McCain chose her as his running mate last August but she initially electrified the Republican base with her folksy turns of phrase and her strident attacks on Barack Obama. A series of disastrous television interviews exposed her weakness on policy detail, however, and Ms Palin soon became a staple for late-night comics, notably her lookalike Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live.
Despite last November’s election defeat, Ms Palin remains popular among conservatives and she is a formidable fundraiser for Republican candidates throughout the US. Two of her potential rivals for the party’s presidential nomination in 2012 – Nevada senator John Ensign and South Carolina governor Mark Sanford – have been at the centre of sex scandals in recent weeks and Mr Obama has appointed a third, Utah governor John Hunstman, as ambassador to China.
Two of Mr McCain’s rivals last time – former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee – are likely to return to the field in 2012. Both have established political action committees to raise funds for Republican congressional candidates and Mr Huckabee has a weekly platform as the host of a chat show on Fox News.
Freed from her obligations as governor, Ms Palin could spend more time in the “lower 48” states, step up her fundraising activities and bone up on policy in preparation for a presidential run in 2012.