Sarah Palin Not Running for President: "My Family Comes First"
Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin will not run for president in the 2012 election, the ex-governor announced Wednesday.
According to a letter written to her supporters obtained by ABC News, Palin said she decided not to run "after much prayer and serious consideration" and that her family comes first.
"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," she wrote. "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."
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Palin also outlined her goals to make government smaller and reduce taxes. "In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House."
Her letter ends years of speculation that she would make a run for the White House in 2012 after she and running mate John McCain lost the election to Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama in 2008. Her decision not to run comes on the same day that Republican favorite Chris Christie, the current governor of New Jersey, announced he still does not plan to run next year.
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Although she's not running for President, Palin has something to fall back on. She's a correspondent for Fox News and it sounds like Fox News Channel Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes has no plans of letting her go. In an interview with The Associated Press about the channel's 15th anniversary, Ailes said he had no regrets about bringing her on board. "I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings," he told the news agency.
Fox News Channel anchor Greta Van Susteren later tried to clarify Ailes' remarks about Palin's hotness, saying he meant that Palin was hired because she was popular, not because she was good-looking. "His use of the term 'hot' was not meant in a cheap way but rather to describe how everyone in the TV business after the 2008 election was trying to hire the Governor," Van Susteren wrote on her blog. "TV execs in every network knew she would get the viewers."
Are you disappointed that Palin won't run for the presidency? Do you think she's "hot" — in the popular sense?