The palin thread: All palin threads have been merged into this one for your viewing and debating pleasure! (Kennedy, party)

[e.ortega]

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

How will Sarah resigning affect the GOP?

Good she is leaving about affecting the GOP no affect whatsoever just one less to deal with.....

[davey123]

Unfortunately, I think that it's good for the Republican Party. She is leaving before the major news surfaces. That being that she got "knocked up" by Mark Sanford on the Appalachian Trail.

[odanny]

She was not relaxed and not ready for prime time with this concession speech (if you want to call it that)

However, listening to this speech, it sounded more like a pep talk than any type of substantive explanation. The basketball comparison was totally juvenile and would have served her better if addressing a high school in Wasilla. The references to the troops and her faith only reveal her as angling for future political consideration, and also trying to deflect any skepticism of her motives.

After listening to that folksy explanation, it sounded totally rehearsed and rambling.

Anyway, the explanation was rushed and confusing, she was actually better in prime time, I'll give her that much.

Hillary Clinton she aint.


YouTube - Republican National Convention Sarah Palin Speech

[RobE]

This will hurt the GOP in the short term because it just further reinforces the impression that the party is a ship with nobody qualified to steer it.

In the longterm, if it is true that she is about to be hit with a federal embezzlement indictment (and maybe even possible bribery), it would depend on how long it drags on and just what the pace of information is. If it drags on for a couple of years, it would kill the Republicans in 2010 because it reminds people of the corruption we saw with the Jack Abramoff scandal and other malfeasance. If they can wrap this thing up within six months, the GOP can, to a certain extent, put it behind them for the remainder of the 2010 campaign and beyond to 2012.

The absolute worst case scenario for the GOP, however, is that if there is no criminal case, she does run in 2012, sucks up all the media air and becomes a national laughingstock anew. That means less air during primary season for Romney, Huckabee, etc. Thus, Palin's lunacy would come to define the entire GOP field.

And Palin being their 2012 presidential candidate would devastate the Republicans. Yeah, the evangelical zealots would love it even though she is a proven liar and grifter, but she would scare the hell out of everybody else, especially independents, and imbue the downticket races with the aroma of a party too extreme and stupid to be allowed to lead.

[kingtodd]

I just listened to Bill Kristol trying to spin this as a 'shrewd political move'.....C'mon now...some things you just can't spin....The GOP is a laughing stock....You know Pres. Obama has to be balling on the floor in the WH saying to himself....I can't wait to pummel her in 2012...

[Spot]

AC 360 commentators are saying that Palin quit in part to stave off an indictment for some of the crimes she's under investigation for.

Sounds like a potential republican presidential candidate to me!

[padcrasher]

That would be sad if that were true. Who are they do determine what the terms of her not being investigated are?

[twista6002]

This is good for McCain because if he'd have won, she'd have Spirew Agnew written all over her

[odanny]

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

How will Sarah resigning affect the GOP?

It will give the rightwing media plenty of lead time to pull enough levers, blow enough smoke and tilt enough mirrors to make her sound ready to be President

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by zz4guy

She's obviously quitting to prep for her presidential campaign. You can't run for president and give an honest day's work to your job as governor. This is exactly what ROnald Reagan did. He quit in 76 as governor of California and was elected in 1980.

If I was Obama I'd be shaking in my boots. It is going to be a landslide

Reagan did not quit as CA governor in 1976. California's governor in 1976 was Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. who was elected in 1974. Reagan chose not to run in 1974 either because he was finished being governor or because he didn't want to risk his national chances running in what was one of the worst years for GOP candidates.