When Marty Rutherford's phone rang on a beautiful July day in 2009, she had a sinking feeling something might be up with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Rutherford was Palin's Department of Natural Resources Deputy Commissioner. Along with a handful of others, she was one of the prime architects of Palin's huge and radical oil and gas policies.
She had been watching Palin closely since Palin returned from the vice presidential trail. She had seen Palin become less and less involved in governing and increasingly distracted by criticism. She had seen Palin grow increasingly sad.
"I told her to ignore it all. To keep her head down and just focus on the job." Palin didn't take Rutherford's advice. She simply couldn't, Rutherford later surmised. "She would really have to have wanted to do that. She couldn't fake it," Rutherford said in an interview this spring.
Later Rutherford would observe she sensed what the July call was going to be about. But when she put her phone to her ear, and Revenue Commissioner Pat Galvin's voice on the line told her that Palin was resigning, all she could manage to do is scream, "Fuck!"
There wasn't much more Rutherford could do. She was on vacation on a fishing boat in Southeast Alaska. But she gave it a shot. She called DNR commissioner Tom Irwin and pleaded for him to talk Palin out of leaving.
"Tell her she can't do that!" Rutherford yelled at the phone. "Talk her out of it!"
There was no talking her out of it. On July 3 of that year, with the sun shining, with Todd and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and a handful of members of her cabinet circled around, Palin announced that she was no longer going to be Alaska's governor. "If I have learned one thing: Life is about choices!" she told the news cameras. Her choice then was to quit her job.
She promised Alaskans that she would continue to work for them, but in a new capacity. "No more politics as usual," she said. Then, after the cameras were shut down, she turned to each member of her team and gave them hugs. It was a team that had worked day and night -- as hard as they ever had in their lives -- to enact policies that would not have been possible under another, less popular governor. It was a heady team assembled at a heady time in Alaska politics. It was a team that, prior to Palin being picked in 2008 by Sen. John McCain to be his vice-presidential running mate, worked for a governor who had the approval of roughly 80 percent of Alaskans.
Palin was the governor who gave Rutherford and the rest the political cover to enact those policies that would take Alaska resources back from oil company control. The team largely delivered. And then Palin turned her back on them. She turned her back on a whole lot more Wednesday.
Sarah Palin's flirtation with the presidency had captured the imagination of many in the country. Her new team, citizens from across the nation, had been working hard for her, too. They spent their time and their money trying to convince her to run. They fought to counter an often harsh media assessment. They printed flyers and T-shirts. They set up websites and booths at small town political events. They tweeted like mad birds, wrote thousands of emails, joined on the comment section of thousands of new stories. They flew across the country to hear her speak.
Many of them likely reacted to her announcement she would not run in much the way Rutherford reacted to the resignation as governor.
Palin told talk show host Mark Levin that she would continue to work for the country. Some may believe her. Others, particularly Alaskans who have heard much of this before, were sure to be suspicious.
Indeed, in many ways, it's Alaskans who have the most cause to be most upset. After Palin walked back into the family home soon to become a fortress in July of 2009, she turned her back on not only her team, but the state. After the promise to take "my fight for what's right -- for Alaska -- in a new direction," she largely disappeared from public view. When she did emerge, it was to film a segment for her television reality show or make a carefully orchestrated appearance at some event -- one for Glenn Beck, another for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller. Apart from endorsing the Tea Party-backed Miller in his race against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Palin hasn't weighed in on Alaska issues. She has stood by even as her successor as governor tried to unravel her large and signature tax on the Alaska oil industry.
Until Tuesday, her last, diehard supporters were convinced that she was doing it for a greater purpose. The multi-million dollar book she wrote, her reality TV show, her national speeches, the bus tour of America, it all had to be for something big. And the only thing big enough to justify everything Palin had done, they believe, was to get ready for the most difficult race -- the run for president.
A politician can get away with a lot in the 49th state and survive. They can fall off bar stools, suffer drug problems, abandon any idea of good grooming, live in hovels, and still maintain power. Politicians don't need a degree to be respected in the 49th state, nor money, nor connections. All they need is a stated goal to make the state a better place. And unless you're doing something like running for president, you cannot quit the state and still be a respectable Alaskan.
On Wednesday, more than a few Alaskans were wondering if Jon Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show'' on the Comedy Channel, hadn't hit close to home when he looked at what Palin has been up to in recent months and posited that someone who drives around the country in a bus all painted up campaign style with a gaggle of reporters in pursuit is either running for president or is a crazy person.
And running for president is no longer an option.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com and Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com