Meg Stapleton (right), a top adviser to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has resigned. | AP photo composite by POLITICO Top Palin aide resigns

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s senior adviser and spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, has resigned, POLITICO has learned.

Stapleton has been a Palin confidante since December 2006 and one of the governor’s most trusted aides since she was vaulted onto the national political scene by being picked as GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate.


Stapleton said she resigned to spend more time with her husband and 2-year-old daughter, Isabella.

“While it has been an honor to help Gov. Palin and her family over the last few years, I am also honored to have this incredible opportunity to stay home with my precious miracle, Isabella,” Stapleton told POLITICO. "[She is] 2 years old, [and] I have missed significant moments in her life, but I look forward with great happiness to celebrating milestones as well as mundane moments with her as I refocus my priorities. I also look forward to seeing my saint of a husband again, too!”

Since the end of the presidential campaign, Stapleton has been one of only a handful of aides and trusted contacts maintained by Palin through her transition from governor, to national political figure, to author, to Fox News contributor and one of the unofficial leaders of the tea party movement.

In that time, Stapleton was a key strategic adviser and the pipeline for anyone seeking Palin’s attention, including Republican officials and reporters.

“Meg has been deeply involved in all things Palin and instrumental in Sarah's many successes,” Fred Malek, a prominent Republican fundraiser and Palin friend, told POLITICO. “It’s hard to replace anyone so loyal, tireless and effective, but the Palin phenomenon will continue. Meg has surely earned the privilege to devote more time to her 2-year-old daughter, but I expect she will continue to render advice to her good friend on key issues.”

Prior to working for the former governor, Stapleton was director of scheduling and advance for Republican National Committee Co-Chairwoman Jeanie Austin, an assistant for Malek at Thayer Capital Partners and a local television news reporter in New York, Pennsylvania and Alaska.

Palin and her now ex-aide have been talking about her stepping down for some time, and it became official on Wednesday — Stapleton’s birthday.

Stapleton has been employed by Palin’s PAC since helping to launch it in January 2009. In an e-mail to the staff last week, she wrote: “Earlier this week, I handed Governor Palin my resignation, effective the end of this month.”

“While I had hoped to work together on so many more projects, time with my precious 2-year-old has been further minimized with the whirlwind commitments of all things Palin,” she told the SarahPAC staff. “I have done my best to scale back, but Isabella is now resorting to hiding my BlackBerry, and she shouldn't grow up begging for a mother to start acting like a mother.”