Palin's quit before

McClatchy's Politics Editor, Robert Rankin, notes an Anchorage Daily News story from 2004 in which Sarah Palin quit her job as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. I've spoiled the punch line, but read these excerpts and pretend you don't already know the date:

Palin said it was hard to do her job with potential civil penalties hanging over her head if she talked about what went on at her agency. She said the experience was taking the "oomph" out of her passion for government service and she decided to quit rather than becoming bitter.

Palin is a former mayor of Wasilla. She made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination in the 2002 election and has been discussed as a possible challenger to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Palin said Friday her decision to leave the commission had nothing to do with such matters.

Here's the full story.

Comments

[karela]

To Kansan---thanks for putting that all down chronologically. I had read most of it before, but when you put it all in one place, it certainly paints a picture. Sarah has been running for government office as a bouncy, bubbly, perky beauty queen and it has worked for her for a long time. I hope it never works again. I suppose she'll take on Rush Limbaugh for the radio head of the Republican party because that's where the most money is. Limbaugh signed an eight year contract in 2008 for around $400 million. That should be a real cat fight. Rush won't yield his throne without a nasty war.

[Kansan]

Rankin missed much of the story.

Palin was elected twice to the Wasilla City Council. She quit her second term to run against her mentor, Mayor John Stein. She beat him and was reelected but quit in order to run for Lt. Governor.

She had neither the ability for nor the interest in performing the mayoral functions so she created the city manager post to relieve herself of those bothersome responsibilities. She did spend $50,000 decorating and redecorating her office and got the city tens of millions of dollars in debt building an indoor hockey venue.

When she ran in 2002, she had a close relationship with Bill Allen, whose campaign finance laundry provided her with 11% of all her contributions. Allen is scheduled to be sentenced on federal corruption charges on Oct. 28.She was appointed as Oil and Gas Commission chair by Governor Murkowski but quit in 2004 to run for Governor. So she has resigned the only four positions to which she has ever been elected.

When she left the O&G Commission, she complained that she could not make ethic charges she'd lodged against a fellow commissioner public. But her complaint against him was that he was illegally doing political work and using state equipment to do it. In 2002, it was discovered that she'd done the same thing herself as Wasilla mayor.

Lastly she'd busted her fellow Republican commissioner at the O&G by hacking into his e-mail account. But when some kid did that during the VP campaign to her personal account, that she used to bypass her state e-mail so as to keep otherwise discoverable public information from the public, she howled about it and demanded the feds prosecute him.

If you're getting dizzy following Sarah around as she walks in circles, you can imagine how Alaskans must feel.

[Joe Sedlak]

Palin's heart may in the right place, but her brain and her mouth aren't. When things get tough for her, she quits and makes excuses and then tries something else. Can you imagine someone like this only a heart beat away from the president? What in the world was McCain thinking?

Sarah isn't mature enough to cope with being on the national scene. How did the voters in Alaska think that she would be big enough to run their state?