Although she has shown up little on the Alaska scene recently, former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin hinted to a Christian gathering on July 22 that she might run for U.S. Senate — if God directs her to.
The comments were during an interview in which she was asked about a run, and she was discussing it in general terms mixed in with other accounts about her governorship and run-ins with the Obama Administration and his minions, but the media ran with it.
Mainstream media has has a hard time getting clicks ever since it ran Donald Trump out of office, and Palin was a gift at a time when the media would rather not focus on President Joe Biden’s foibles.
“If God wants me to do it I will,” Palin told Ché Ahn, the leader of the New Apostolic Reformation movement. It’s a Christian group she has been associated with for years.
“Palin would be running against Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who has not been as steadfast in her support of Donald Trump as most others in the GOP in Congress,” wrote the Guardian newspaper.
Palin said she had never heard of Kelly Tshibaka, who has already announced her candidacy against Murkowski. Palin says she follows politics closely and the fact that she had not heard of Tshibaka scared her, presumably about whether Tshibaka has what it takes to beat Murkowski.
“If the state of Alaska really really wants me to, I will,” she said. But then she threw a note of caution.
“I would say you guys better be there for me this time, because a lot of people were not there for me last time,” Palin told the audience of Christians. She was John McCain’s running mate for president in 2008 and was both loved and hated by Republicans and Democrats.
On stage at the conference, she was asked why she quit being governor in 2009.
“There’s a difference between quitting and saying enough is enough,” she said, and cited the numerous public records requests filed by the Obama Administration, describing Obama’s operatives as his “flying monkeys,” a reference to the Wizard of Oz story.
“You call people flying monkeys if they’re doing the bidding of someone trying to clobber you,” she explained.
Palin said that when the Department of Law would not defend her on ethics complaints, such as the time she wore snow machine brand patches on a jacket at the beginning of the Iron Dog Race, in which her then-husband Todd was competing, she started going bankrupt. The legal hounding she endured from those opposing her “stalled our administration.”
“Everything was scrutinized. It was horrible for the people for whom I was to serve,” she said.
Palin said, “I knew my lieutenant governor was a born-again Christian,” and described herself as more of a Trump figure, and Parnell as more of a Mike Pence.
“I knew if I handed the reins to Lt Gov. Sean Parnell, he would continue for that last year, that fiscally and socially conservative agenda that I knew I was elected upon,” she said.
In actuality, Palin had ushered in crushing socialist-style oil taxes known as ACES, which drove oil companies away from investing in Alaska. The harm has endured for over a decade.
And in 2014, she endorsed the Democrats’ choice for governor — Bill Walker — over Sean Parnell, in part because he helped pass SB 21, making the oil taxes less of a disincentive for oil exploration and development.
In September, Palin posted an odd video on Instagram in which she spoke directly to Murkowski, saying she could see 2022 from her house.
Read: Did Palin really say she is going to run for Senate in bizarre video?
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also spoke at the conference.
