Sarah Palin: I couldn't afford to stay governor

[WI_DEM]

The New York Times' long magazine profile of Sarah Palin reports that she's seriously considering a presidential run. But it also contains an interesting anecdote about her decision to step down as governor of Alaska in 2009:

One afternoon in June 2009, Gov. Sarah Palin was sitting in the Washington office of her friend Fred Malek, whom she met through McCain during the 2008 campaign. She was listening to the former White House aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford map out logical next steps to her political career. Focus on amassing a good record as governor, he advised her. Run for a second term. Develop some policy expertise. Do some extensive overseas travel. Generate some good will by campaigning for fellow Republicans.
Malek told me that he could tell that this wasn't what Palin wanted to hear. Here's the problem, she replied impatiently: I've got a long commute from my house to my office. I don't have the funds to pay for my family to travel with me, and the state won't pay for it, either. I can't afford to have security at my home -- anybody can come up to my door, and they do. Under the laws of Alaska, anybody can file suit or an ethics charge against me, and I have to defend it on my own. I'm going into debt.
Three weeks after talking to Malek, Palin resigned and cut a book deal.

The Anchorage Daily News reported in March 2009 that Palin owed more than a half-million dollars in legal debts after fighting numerous ethics violation claims. The state personnel board went on to declare that the legal fund set up while she was governor to help pay those debts was itself illegal. (The fund was shut down and relaunched.) Palin cited the ethics charges in a post-resignation interview with ABC News: "t has been costing our state millions of dollars. It's cost Todd and me. You know the adversaries would love to see us put on the path of personal bankruptcy so that we can't afford to run."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/11/palin-says-she-couldnt-afford.html?wprss=44

[gateley]

1. That woman simply disgusts me. nt

[LisaM]

2. These people take the cake.

Governorships don't pay enough! Government health care takes 28 days to kick in! Gee, how do they think the rest of us live?

How out of touch can you be?

[BrklynLiberal]

3. -puke-..I mean REALLY !!! .... -PUKE!-

[WI_DEM]

4. I hope she runs for president and I hope she is nominated because I think there is enough

baggage there that Dems would win easily.

[pnwmom]

8. Nixon had plenty of baggage and he got elected. ANYONE

with a major party nomination has a chance of being elected.

[KingFlorez]

5. Then stay out of politics

Scratch that, she couldn't get a job in the private sector with her intelligence. Being a demagogue is the only thing that will make her money. And from what I've heard, she milked the per diem system pretty good as Governor.

[treestar]

6. So how come every other governor in AK history has been able to

afford it? :rofl:

[Lil Missy]

7. That woman is an idiot.

[Rosie1223]

9. So he *didn't* advise her to make up words on Twitter??

Welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Malek.

[struggle4progress]

10. Palin Tanning Bed Installed In Governor's Mansion (2008 story)

The Huffington Post
First Posted: 09-15-08 05:25 PM | Updated: 10-16-08 05:12 AM
Tanning beds can cost up to $35,000 to install in a home ... "I don't think it's normal for people to have a tanning bed in their house, " Wiese, who is based in Fairbanks said. "It's expensive" ... Palin declared May 2007, "Skin Cancer Awareness Month." In the press materials it was noted, "Skin cancer is caused, overwhelmingly, by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and from tanning beds" ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/15/palin-installed-tanning-b_n_126625.html

Tanning Bed to Troopergate: Palin Aides Kept Scrambling
Questions About Tanning Bed in Governor's Mansion -- Sends Aides Scrambling
By RHONDA SCHWARTZ
Sept. 16, 2008
"It's vetting gone haywire," said Gov. Sarah Palin's beleaguered press secretary, Bill McAllister, as he dealt with a new round of questions about the governor -- this time about a tanning bed installed in the governor's mansion in Juneau ... "She paid for it herself," said McAllister from his Anchorage office. He told ABC News he had "no idea" why she had installed the machine but confirmed it was installed in the mansion. An online search showed tanning beds for sale at a wide range of prices, starting at around $1,000 and going as high as $35,000. McAllister said he did not know what Palin had paid for her tanning bed ...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5813754&page=1

[struggle4progress]

11. Palin Billed State to Be Stay-at-Home Gov (2008 story)

by Paul Kiel
ProPublica, Sep. 9, 2008, 11:22 a.m.
... Palin apparently believes “our citizens should have to pay” for her to live at home. The capital of Alaska is Juneau, but Palin prefers to stay in her family home in Wasilla, which is about 600 miles away. Palin commutes to work in a state office building in Anchorage, a 45-minute drive. Palin has drawn a per diem allowance for 312 nights spent at home since she took office 19 months ago, the Post reports, for a total of $16,951. Per diem expenses are supposed to cover officials when they’re traveling on state business. The Post quotes “officials” as explaining that Palin has drawn the per diem because her “duty station” is Alaska’s capital, Juneau—the logic being that in staying at home, Palin is effectively traveling ...
http://www.propublica.org/article/palin-billed-state-to-be-stay-at-home-gov-909

Sarah Palin's Tax Problem
September 10, 2008
From today's Washington Post:
Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home; Taxpayers Also Funded Family's Travel
by James V. Grimaldi & Karl Vick:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife. Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post. The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show ...
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/09/sarah-palins-ta.html

[struggle4progress]

12. Gov. Palin Says She Will Quit, Citing Probes, Family Needs (WaPo 2009)

By Philip Rucker and Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 4, 2009
... Palin offered few clues about her ambitions but said she arrived at her decision in part to protect her family, which has faced withering criticism and occasional mockery, and to escape ethics probes that have drained her family's finances and hampered her ability to govern. She said leaving office is in the best interest of the state ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/03/AR2009070301738.html

[struggle4progress]

13. Palin files ethics complaint against self in 'troopergate' (2008)

By Lisa Demer | Anchorage Daily News
Gov. Sarah Palin wants a state board to review the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan -- taking the unusual step of making an ethics complaint against herself. Her lawyer sent an "ethics disclosure" Monday night to Attorney General Talis Colberg. The governor asked that it go to the three-person Personnel Board as a complaint. While ethics complaints are usually confidential, Palin wants the matter open ... http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/09/03/51592/palin-files-ethics-complaint-against.html#ixzz15ZOo4JJP

Resignation of Sarah Palin
Governor Palin said she was resigning her post due to the costs and distractions of battling the ethics investigations ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resignation_of_Sarah_Palin

[struggle4progress]

14. Palin Resignation Costs Alaska

RACHEL D'ORO | 09/ 4/09 06:59 PM |
... The preliminary figures obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request show it cost the state almost $14,100 for the July 26 swearing-in ceremony of new Gov. Sean Parnell. The price tag for moving Palin – the former GOP vice presidential candidate – and her family from the governor's mansion in Juneau amounted to roughly $3,328 ... The tally doesn't include the estimated $100,000 it cost for a one-day special session last month in which lawmakers approved Palin's pick to replace Parnell as lieutenant governor ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/05/palin-resignation-costs-a_n_278116.html

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

15. Wait I'm confused. So now the government has to dole out even more cash for these "small

government" people to serve?

[ljm2002]

16. "You know the adversaries..."

"...would love to see us put on the path of personal bankruptcy so that we can't afford to run."

Did anyone else notice the choice of the phrase "the adversaries"? It is an unusual choice of words. Even "our adversaries" would have been more normal, or "our enemies".

Google "adversary devil" or "adversary satan". The Christianist movement (my own term, to distinguish them from Christians as a whole) uses the terms "adversary" and "devil" interchangeably. Therefore I am sure she uses the term in the same way, and is calling her enemies devils.

Which is not surprising. I just like pointing out when they are using code words.

[Phx_Dem]

17. Maybe your loser husband should have got a job. n/t