In interviews released this morning, Sarah Palin repeated that the reason she is stepping down is to spare Alaska from spending more time and money investigating ethics claims against her.
She blamed the ethics complaints on the “opposition research” flooding into Alaska after John McCain named her his running mate to “dig up dirt.”
Palin gave a slew of interviews last night at her husband’s family’s fishing spot in western Alaska. During the photo op, in which she wore overall waders and full makeup, she gave 10 minutes to each news outlet: CNN, NBC, ABC and Anchorage Daily News. (FOX was also there, but hasn’t aired the interview yet.)
She noted that she now has $500,000 in legal bills and, although she tried to keep the focus on the state’s expenditures, she let loose this key point:
The adversaries would love to see us put on a path of personal bankruptcy so we couldn’t afford to run.
That almost seems like an acknowledgment that she had to leave office in order to be able, financially, to run for higher office.
More highlights, and video, after the jump.
She deflected questions about a 2012 presidential, saying over and over that she couldn’t say how the next fish run was going to go, let alone where she’d be in three years. When asked if she was worried that her resignation would end her political career, she said, “Politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it.”
Another reason to leave, Palin said, was because she knows she won’t run in 2010 and doesn’t want a “wasteful” lame duck session in which she wouldn’t be able to get anything done. When one interviewer asked why she wouldn’t stick around, she replied, “Because that’s politics as usual!”
Her story, whether or not it’s the truth, is becoming clearer than it was after that rambling speech last Friday. She made this decision because, one, she won’t run for re-election and, two, she knows she may spend the majority of her last 18 months in office beating back ethics inquiries, a process so expensive it may preclude any future runs for office.
Also revealed in the interviews: Track, Palin’s son who is serving in Iraq, was the one “hell yeah.”
