Sarah Palin leaving governor's post amid confusion, criticism
Supporters struggle to explain her departure, and some Alaska lawmakers say she has shown little interest in state business since returning from her failed vice presidential bid.
By Kim Murphy
July 26, 2009
Reporting from Anchorage -- Up here in Alaska, wildlife metaphors tend to be as abundant as their flesh-and-blood counterparts, and Gov. Sarah Palin has helped herself to them generously in explaining why she's stepping down Sunday, barely halfway through her term.
She didn't want the state to be stuck with a "lame duck" chief executive, she said. She could hang around the statehouse and go with the flow, she allowed, but "only dead fish go with the flow."
Palin's departure -- she'll officially hand over power to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell at a community picnic in Fairbanks -- has left many Alaskans largely confused. And
state legislators are scrambling to convene a special session to recover $28.6 million in federal energy funds that Palin rejected as one of her parting salutes to independence from Washington.Only a year ago she was Alaska's youngest-ever governor, riding a nearly unprecedented wave of popularity. But Palin has weathered stinging criticism across the state since her July 3 resignation announcement.
"In a democracy, politicians ask for the voters' trust. To violate that trust by quitting in midstream suggests that for Palin, the voters -- and more broadly, the citizens of Alaska -- simply don't count," University of Alaska history professor Steve Haycox wrote Friday in the Anchorage Daily News.
more...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-palin26-2009jul26,0,608357.story