SARAH PALIN WILL NOT RUN FOR PRESIDENT, SHE TELLS MARK LEVIN

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin broke the news that she will not be a candidate in 2012 on Mark Levin’s nationally syndicated radio show, Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator reports:

Palin acknowledged the disappointment of her supporters (Matt Drudge  e-mailed to say it was a “sad day”) but said the decision had been reached “prayerfully.”

UPDATE: Her e-mail at Mark Levin’s Web site:

October 5, 2011
Wasilla, Alaska
After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.
My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.
From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.
I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.
Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.
In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.
Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country!
God bless America.
– Sarah Palin

UPDATE II: Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE III: Allahpundit’s happy. But you expected that, right?

Just got off the phone with Michelle McCormick of Organize4Palin, who is in a bar in Clive, Iowa, working up a big bar tab. McCormick says she has “no regrets” about spending months trying to build a grassroots campaign for Palin, and says she will “always have respect for Governor Palin.”

Meanwhile, I just got deadline assignment . . .

UPDATE IV: Lonely Con: “Nicolle Wallace must be so disappointed.” Yeah, and now there’s nothing to stop Palin from suing Joe McGinniss.

UPDATE V (Smitty) 20:09: Here I go,

Veering in the direction of Allahpundit, we can all start working on concession speech suggestions for this year’s Dole/McCain stand-in.

Less snarkily, remember people: it’s the platform, not the candidate. Let’s not go all reverse-Alinsky and overly personalize things. Even His Newtness would be an improvement over the current POTUS, were Gingrich to secure the nomination. Enthusiasm is a fine luxury, but if you’re into politics merely for the hormonal rush, your attention is drawn to a Lady GaGa concert.

UPDATE VI (Smitty) 20:18: Bob Belvedere has a reasonable take:

Needless to say, I’m very disappointed…and very worried because none of the other announced candidates fully understands what bad shape we are in.

Well, maybe, but then the task falls to the Tea Parties to inform them.

UPDATE VII (Smitty) 20:53: A Point of View lists 67 pundits who are not, like me, eating crow.

62 comments

  1. I think Sarah Palin would make a good President, but this is the right call.  As she put it:

    “When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”

    Such a campaign would have been brutal, given the level of hatred aimed at her and her family.  It’s possible that this could have derailed the entire 2012 Presidential campaign, the derangement of the lefties is that high.

    Sarah will do a good job as a supporter, and I wish her the best of luck.

  2. Of course she doesn’t say anything about whether she’d run as Vice-President …

    Cain/Palin 2012!
     

  3. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role
    to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s
    governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue
    to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental
    transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our
    greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the
    rule of law.

    I said this months ago when everyone else was so hot for her to run.

  4. A lot of people noted this idea, Mike.  Some of them were actually fans, and others were defenders of the status quo.

    Not a good time to say ‘I told you so.’ as the sadness is too much right now.  Especially as most of us still think it would have worked, and been stellar.  But I will respect her decision even as I seriously consider breaking out the tequila.

  5. So if I end up having to make a write-in vote, should it be….

    TheOtherMcCain or

    Robert Stacy McCain

    or how bout just Bobby McCain for that good ole Southern Jimmy Carter feel?

  7. Sarah Palin Is Not Running For President [Updates Below]…

    The text of her announcement, courtesy of Fox News: October 5, 2011 Wasilla, Alaska After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family …

  13. Well, it makes me a little bit sad as a voter that she’s not running, but as a mom I am *thrilled* that she’s not running. Her kids really don’t need the crap right now. Good Mama.

  15. That is the Chicago insider method of operation.
    Use the rules you’ve been exempted from to have government and N.G.O.s attack your rivals making it too expensive for them to fight you.

  16. Which is the problem with the theme of Update V; the nominee had better have some excitement and fire to overcome the current POTUS and his minions/backers.

  18. OT also. Many of us are not surprised he’s died. When he took off last winter those of us who were acquainted with him noticed how much weight he had lost and noted his increasing weakness.

    RIP.

  19. Going to have a glass of wine, and put the picture of her taken in front of the statue of liberty and hang it up on my wall….not going to take it down even when all  my lefty friends come….or my father-in-law.  I’m proud to have supported Gov. Palin voice in the marketplace of ideas.  Those ideas are going to leave a mark.  Tomorrow I’ll start looking at several of the other candidates…ABBO IYKWIMAITYD

  21. I can’t agree Smitty. GOP Candidates  have traditionally ignored the platform. RINOs are especially noted for it. It is the candidate and his/her integrity that makes or breaks a campaign.

    RINOs McCain and Dole are good examples of this truth.

  22. Well, since I’m not in favor of the status quo, I reckon I could be considered a fan, but I’ve always suspected that she wouldn’t run so didn’t get my hopes up.

    Guess I’ll have to switch over to the “Cain Train.”

  24. I believe it was Sean Trende at RCP who wrote an interesting article based on the theory that the candidate doesn’t matter but rather it’s the circumstances and the party. Not sure I buy that completely but I am sure that the zero is done.

  26. Cain ain’t bad.  Same with Santorum, and Bachmann. Romney is proof that the RINO scumbugs haven’t had enough Obama, and need more of him to understand the wrath they have stirred,a nd the stupidity of their own very stupid selves.

    I’m just going to crawl away into a fetal postion for now, and occasionally straighten up to rip out the lungs of any RINO twit I find in my path.

  28. I will always support this genuine and great American lady. She did what she felt was right for herself and her family.

  37. Maybe I’ll post later about the disappointment I feel and why, but for
    the moment I’d like to just note that in the wake of this announcement
    I’m now officially scared for my country.

    I believe Palin when she said that the order she prioritizes things in
    her life is “God, family and country”. The question of God’s will being slightly above my pay grade, I’ll leave that one alone. That leaves family and country in that order. We all know how passionately Sarah Palin loves this country. I also believe that she has been
    shrewdly positioning herself to make a run in 2012, and that the stars right at this moment are as aligned for her as they are going to get. MHO only, but if she had declaired tonight instead of demured, tom0rrow she’s polling at least 30-35%, and the race becomes Palin v Romney from this point forward with Cain in the John B. Anderson role. I have felt all along that this set of circumstances, the race as it stands now, is what she’s been aiming for, what all her waiting was intended to create, and yet she didn’t pull the trigger. Why?

    She said it above. Family. And not just the rigor of a presidential campaign on her kids, if that was all it was, she’d have bowed out long since. No I believe that Sarah and Todd have made the judgment that if she runs, her family, her kids, her folks and her sibs will be in actual physical danger. I heard disappointment in her voice tonight on the Levin show. She’s turning her back on all she’s been working towards for years. Why?

    I believe (and this is only a belief, I am privy to no facts) that the most courageous political warrior of our time (based upon all the crap she’s put up with and fought through, still smiling, since 2008) is deciding not to run because she’s worried that someone on the unhinged left would try to hurt or kill Piper or Trig or someone else close to her, the threat is real, and she can’t risk that. Family comes before country, so that’s what she’s chosen, and ladies and gentlemen if THAT is true than what we witnessed tonight is the beginning of the end of rational political discourse in this country, and the dawn of the mobocracy. THAT is my greatest fear, and if that rough beast slouches toward Washington and is born, we are going to see that triumph of emotion over reason, power over law, Rousseau over Locke and chaos over order.  The horseman at the end of that road stands before a mass grave and a civil war.

    I may be wrong. I HOPE I’m wrong. I want to wake up tomorrow and regret huffing all this gold paint, boy did that give me some hallucinations, hahahaha. That’s what I want. But the little cynic inside my breast is restless, and some dark thoughts will not be denied.

  38. Are you saying that it took the absence of Palin from the race to make you afraid for your Country?
     I became afraid for the country when I realized the crash would put the Bolshevik in the White House. My fears increased when I realized how thoroughly Bolshevised the Social Democratic had become, my fault there I’d slept for far too long.

  39. You confuse me, Stace.

    On the one hand, it was Citizens for Cain.

    Then on the other hand, I sense your disappointment in Sarah’s decision.

    Enlighten me, please.

  43. No, of course not. I felt the same way after the last election, but that was ” scared for the direction my country is headed”. Elections, activism…those things can change a direction. Physically intimidated so that the democratic safeguards aren’t allowed to function at all- that equals ” scared that my country won’t survive”.

  44. I wish she would run but she appears to be happy with her decision. I don’t blame her. She has two young children. She joins many top tier candidates that said no.  R.S. you do a great job.

  45. Well, since I’ve been saying since the winter that she would not run this cycle, I’m vindicated, but not celebrating it.

    As I said all along, the media attacks on her family are a primary factor.  Sarah and Todd Palin could take all they dish out, but if she had had any indication the way the leftists and media would target her children, I suspect she would have turned McCain down in ’08.  Let Willow and Piper get older, into college, and in four or eight years it’s a different story.

    I have been hard on her most enthusiastic supporters because they refused to recognize the many signs she was not running, and I apologize if I hurt any feelings. 

  46. Here’s one Palin fan who is DEEPLY disappointed.

    One hopes she isn’t making the kind of overly-thought-out, non-gut-feeling, calculated decision that Newt made in 2008 after a similar kind of drawn-out will (s)he/won’t (s)he drama.

  48. I’m not a Palin fan, but I don’t really see any reason to blame her for the drama.

    She took the temperature. She released a biopic movie. She did a bus tour. She looked — and even waited awhile longer than she initially seemed to intend to — to see if there was the kind of upswell of support that could make her competitive for the nomination, and in the general election, and justify her running.

    There wasn’t.

    So she didn’t.

  49. She was my candidate for this cycle. 

    I respect her decision, but I only have one thing to say: G-ddammit.

    However, can we start a “Beat up on Andrew Sullivan,” week for going after her family.  He started it — its time to do something. 

    Hell, Truman, LBJ and Tip O’Neill NEVER went after the families of candidates.  It’s time to go after Sullivans.

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