UPDATE 8-Palin resigning as Alaska governor in surprise move

(For factbox on Republicans seen as potential candidates for their party's nomination in 2012, click on [ID:nN03184162]

* Palin says to work 'outside government' for change

* Gives no indication of future plans

* Analysts speculate on possible bid for presidency

* Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell takes over July 26 (Recasts with background, detail throughout)

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, July 3 (Reuters) - Sarah Palin, the brash, deeply conservative governor of Alaska who crashed onto the U.S. national political scene last year as the Republican candidate for U.S. vice president, announced abruptly on Friday she was resigning as governor.

In a rambling statement to the media, in which she took no questions, Palin, 45, indicated she wanted to extend her influence in U.S. politics and some analysts said she appeared to be laying the ground for a run at the presidency in 2012.

"We are not retreating, we are advancing in a different direction," Palin said, employing the imprecise circumlocutions that characterize her public pronouncements. "We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time."

Palin, speaking in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, with Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell and much of her state cabinet at her side, said her decision came after much "prayer and consideration." She said she would transfer authority to Parnell on July 26.

Palin had been supposed to stay on as governor until the end of 2010.

She said she did not want to waste time on "political blood sport" and cited public criticism of her actions and her family since the 2008 campaign. "You are naive if you don't see a full-court press right now on the national level picking apart a good point guard," she said, using a basketball analogy.

Palin was the surprise choice of Republican Senator John McCain as his running mate in the 2008 presidential race.

She helped rally the party's conservative base but alienated others who felt she did not have the experience or knowledge for national office. The Republicans lost heavily to Democrat Barack Obama in the November election.

With her party in disarray, she has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the party's nomination in 2012, along with others including Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

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