What does Sarah Palin want?

Jay Cost:

According to the Census Bureau, there were about 160 million people in the United States who were at least 35 years old last year. My rough count of declared presidential candidates in 2008 sits between 150 and 200. Factoring out the foreign born, and dividing the latter by the former, we can say that about 99.9999% of those constitutionally eligible for the presidency did not seek the job. Additionally, 95% of all sitting senators, 98% of all sitting governors, and 99% of all sitting representatives did not seek the presidency last year. I didn't calculate the numbers on former senators, governors, and representatives - but I am sure they would be even larger. From this, we can reasonably infer that most people don't want to be president. It's the life ambition for some - but not for most of us.

I mention this because in all the analyses of Sarah Palin's decision to resign from the governorship of Alaska - it's often been overlooked that maybe she is one of these people.

The classic treatise on political ambition was written by Joseph Schlesinger more than 40 years ago. In Ambition and Politics, he argues cogently that there is a stable "opportunity structure" to electoral politics that governs the ambitions of office-seekers. Two implications of this concept are relevant here.

First, there is a hierarchy of political jobs in this country such that serious candidates for a given office tend to hold one of several lower-order positions. As Schlesinger writes, "American political careers do not proceed chaotically. There are patterns of movement from office to office." When it comes to the presidency, credible contenders typically come from the vice-presidency, the Senate, governors' mansions, battlefields, and so on. In light of this, Palin's resignation strongly suggests that she has no intention of running in 2012. It is hypothetically possible, I suppose, that somebody could resign a governorship after only 32 months of service yet still win the presidency without having held any other immediately qualifying position. But then again, it is hypothetically possible that the Detroit Lions will have a winning season this year. I wouldn't hold my breath for either.

Second, politicians do not advance up the ladder via some overarching strategy. Though of course many have a general desire to move upwards, they all must take opportunities as they present themselves. Assessments of risk and reward must govern their choices. This makes sense: one of the worst things that can happen to professional politicians is electoral defeat; if they don't win, they have to find another line of work! Accordingly, they need to pick their battles, which basically prohibits them from developing some grand scheme. So, for instance, I'd guess that in 2004 Barack Obama did not have designs on a presidential run in 2008. He surely wanted to be president - but he probably planned to wait until an opening presented itself, which happened to come pretty quickly for him. As regards Sarah Palin, this suggests that while she might like to run for the presidency in 2016 or 2020 - those dates are so far off that nothing she did on Friday counts as appreciable movement in that direction. Anyway, the previous point implies that she'd have to run for another office other than president between now and then - and that would have to be her principal focus.

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I think she calculated that the costs of continuing as governor were higher than the cost sof resigning. The Democrat strategy of filing bad faith ethics complaints against her appear to be ignored by most of the pundits, but I dare say that most of them would also be overwhelmed by having $500,000 legal bills in the last 10 months. As a former general counsel, those kind of numbers would be significant for many companies.

Sure she has the ability to do fund raising to help defray these costs but that is another distraction beyond the distraction of dealing with the frivolous complaints. By removing herself from office she removes herself from the Democrats main weapon to keep her from being a national figure. I think she could rationally calculate that she was not going to have a chance to be a national figure if she stayed in office.

Her resignation may not strengthen her as a political candidate. But remaining in office was also unlikely to do so either. She now has the freedom to make a lot of money with her book and with speeches as well as collect chits by speaking on behalf of other candidates. In doing so she may develop what she needs to become a national candidate.

She still has the star power. GOP chairman Micheal Steel recognized that in his response to her resignation. He saw it as freeing her up to help other candidates. If she is successful at doing that her political potential will take care of itself.

I think Karl Rove's analysis points out the downside to her new strategy.

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Well, they’re a little perplexed because she -- if she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she’s now done that, but it is -- it sort of sent a -- sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office.

Also, she’s not going to be able to escape media attention. If she thinks somehow that she’s going to be able to protect her family against the kind of things that she’s suffered over the last couple of months from David Letterman and others, and seek a role of leadership for effective change for our country, as she said in her speech, she’s not going to be able to do it.

The media, if she wants to run for president, is going to be following her intensely for the next three years.

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She has to recognize these problems, but I think she calculates that she will have greater freedom in responding to the challenges outside of office.

I would have suggested another approach to the Democrat strategy of bad faith ethics complaints. Find a way to make those who file bad faith complaints pay for them. The courts have a system of sanctioning parties who file bad faith causes of action. Alaska should amend its ethics process to give a court the discretion to impose sanctions when the charges are obvious frivolous.