Why did Sarah quit?

Sarah Palin has resigned as Governor of the state of Alaska, effectively dooming any hopes she has to run for President in 2012. This announcement came as a shock to political watchers and to conservatives whose support remained consistent despite the teen pregnancy of her daughter and ethics violations.

The resignation comes on the heels of a dramatic and very public feud between Palin and David Letterman who made some bad jokes that were in very bad taste about Palin’s daughter Bristol, who bore a child out of wedlock.  But this was just the culmination of a media frenzy that dogged her from the moment she was chosen by John McCain to run as his vice-presidential candidate.  Some say that a new Vanity Fair article just tipped her over the edge.

You can read more about Sarah Palin’s astrological chart here, and the noon chart is here. (There is a 4:40 pm birth time floating around but that has never been verified by any legitimate source. However, Leo is rising in that chart and Uranus, ruling surprise and sudden change, was transiting the progressed Midheaven of that chart at the time she was nominated last year.)

I suspect that Palin’s husband Todd may have been behind her resignation.  He has evidently been her greatest supporter and played an active role in the care of their children, and transiting Pluto (death, rebirth and transformation) has been in a challenging square formation to Venus (relationships) in her chart since January (it came very close last summer at the time she was nominated), and the second phase of that cycle is coming to a head now.  A transit of Pluto to Venus can be very difficult for a marriage that is not in good shape, and any unsettled business is sure to come to a head under this influence.

Palin is also going through a stressful transit of Chiron over the triple conjunction of the Sun, Mars and Saturn in her chart that began back in February.  She is much more sensitive than she would otherwise be, and any feelings of self-doubt and shame (Sun/Saturn) will be exacerbated now.

It will be interesting to see if Palin has a political future.  She was not overly popular in her home state of Alaska, and erupted into the consciousness of the US primarily as a symbol for the fading right wing of the Republican party.  Much depends on how the opposition of Saturn (convention) and Uranus (change) plays out over the next year.  If a balance is struck between conservativism and liberalism in the US, there will be no need for someone like Palin who generates such extremes of emotion.  But if the polarities continue to separate we will see the growing use of caricatures as political figures rather than intelligent operators who can handle the world stage.