“For the people who come tonight, that means they believe in the resurrection in me,” he told reporters before the start of the meeting Thursday night. “Because I died. I was buried.”

Many of those who attended carried cookies, pies, and brownies along with their Bibles. By the time prayers began, more than 50 cars were parked outside the home. Reporters weren’t allowed inside.

The one-time evangelical superstar insisted that his intent is not to start a new church, but he isn’t ruling out the possibility. He said the reason for starting prayer meetings after three years of exile was a simple one.

“We were getting lonely,” he said.

Haggard, 53, began his journey to becoming one of the nation’s best-known evangelists in 1985 at his home, where he led people in worship. Out of those meetings grew New Life Church, which had about 14,000 members in 2006 and a $50 million prayer campus.

As head of the National Association of Evangelicals, Haggard had the ear of White House staffers, participating in conference calls with them and lobbying Congress for conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices.

In late 2006, Haggard’s life began to unravel when a male prostitute revealed the pastor had paid him for sex over three years. Haggard, who is married and has five children, said the sexual allegations were false, and admitted only to receiving a massage from his accuser and buying drugs from him.

“The essence of our faith as Christians is to forgive,” said Alan Hawkins, a pastor from Albuquerque, N.M., who traveled to Colorado Springs to be in Haggard’s living room Thursday. “When this thing happened, I said, ‘Ted, nobody is defined by their worst moments.’”

New Life Church pastor Brady Boyd issued a short statement on the eve of Haggard’s prayer meeting.

“New Life Church will always be grateful for the many years of dedicated leadership from Ted Haggard and we wish him and his family only the best,” Boyd said. The church said it would not comment further.

Haggard later confessed to “sexual immorality” and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He also was forced out at the church he founded.

As part of a severance package with New Life Church, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs for a period and not speak publicly about the scandal. The family moved back to their $700,000 home down the road from New Life Church in 2007.

Earlier this year, Haggard admitted he had an “inappropriate” relationship with a church volunteer a few years ago. Haggard said the relationship with the man, who was 22 at the time, did not involve physical contact.

Haggard, who developed an anti-gay reputation over the years, told KMGH-TV in an interview Wednesday that he has more compassion for gays because of his trials in recent years. Haggard has also said that when he was 7, a co-worker of his father’s molested him.

“People find it hard to stomach me,” Haggard admitted Thursday, before the steady stream of people started arriving at his home.

“I understand,” he said, a slight grimace on his face.

Even so, the people who showed up at his home were willing to give him a second chance.

“People love a good comeback story,” Haggard said.

The survey was conducted this week, when Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand had to defend his honor over a book he wrote describing paying young men for sex.

Mitterrand has kept his job so far, but the controversy has posed yet another challenge for Sarkozy, who is struggling with France’s worst economic slump since World War II.

Sarkozy hasn’t spoken publicly about Mitterrand’s book, though Mitterrand said the two met privately Thursday and Sarkozy “confirmed his confidence” in the culture minister.

The poll by the CSA agency shows 41 percent of respondents trust the president to confront the country’s problems, down 6 percent from a month earlier. The poll of 1,003 people was conducted by telephone Tuesday and Wednesday. No margin of error was given.

The polling agency noted a particular drop in support among Sarkozy’s core voters, who oppose his policies of reaching out to those outside his right-wing circle – such as Mitterrand, nephew of the late former French president, Socialist Francois Mitterrand.

Politicians and voters remained divided over the culture minister, after he went on national television Thursday night to tamp down calls for his resignation and explain his complicated personal past.

Mitterrand is an easy target for traditionalists: Openly gay, he wrote a book in 2005 called “La mauvaise vie,” or “The Bad Life,” in which he details encounters with male prostitutes in Thailand.

He uses the ambiguous term “boys,” common language in French to refer to gay men. Mitterrand recently jumped to the defense of filmmaker Roman Polanski, in a Swiss jail on U.S. charges related to sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl.

Calls from the extreme right and the left mounted this week for Mitterrand’s resignation.

Speaking on TF1 television Thursday, he insisted he had not hired minors and that the book was not a straight autobiography. He said he had no intention of quitting his job.

“I condemn sexual tourism, which is a disgrace. I condemn pedophilia, which I have never in any way participated in,” Mitterrand said. “All those who accuse me of this kind of thing should be ashamed.”

Some in the governing UMP party welcomed his explanation.

“I found him very moving,” Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Friday on BFM television. “In each person’s life, there are doubtlessly difficult periods, and shadows.”

Mitterrand’s staunchest critics were unconvinced. Marine Le Pen, vice president of the far-right National Front party, called him a “liar” and reiterated calls for him to be fired. She ignited the controversy this week by reading excerpts from the book on television.

While politicians’ personal lives in France are traditionally considered private business, Mitterrand’s experiences have worried some.

“He should resign. What he did is serious, not OK and not legal. He shouldn’t be in the government anymore,” said Alexandre Binon, a 24-year-old student from Rouen visiting Paris.

The book raised no more than literary eyebrows when it was published, and it drew little attention when Mitterrand was named to the government in June. Until he became France’s guardian of culture, Mitterrand was known primarily as a television personality who made profiles of the famous.

“I condemn sexual tourism, which is a disgrace. I condemn pedophilia, which I have never in any way participated in,” Frederic Mitterrand, 62, nephew of late President Francois Mitterrand, said in a national prime time television interview.

“All those who accuse me of this kind of thing should be ashamed.”

In a 2005 book, “La mauvaise vie” or “The Bad Life,” Mitterrand describes Bangkok’s brothels in rich, torrid detail, and the joy and freedom of paying “boys” for sex.

On Thursday, Mitterrand said on TF1 television that the book was not a strict autobiography. He admitted to “errors” in paying for sex in the past, but said he had relations only with men his age.

The exploits described in the book came back to haunt him recently, after he jumped to the defense of filmmaker Roman Polanski. Polanski is currently in a Swiss prison on U.S. charges relating to his sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, when he was 43.

As excerpts of Mitterrand’s book circulated publicly in France this week, a cascade of political figures called for him to quit or be fired after a leader of the far-right National Front launched a tirade on television against Mitterrand and read excerpts from the 4-year-old book.

Mitterrand shot back firmly Thursday, saying he had no intention of leaving the government. He said he spoke to President Nicolas Sarkozy – who has not spoken publicly about the book – Thursday morning and Sarkozy “confirmed his confidence” in the culture minister.

The affair is awkward for France and especially Sarkozy, whose embrace of figures outside the conservative fold such as Mitterrand has upset the governing UMP party. Mitterrand’s critics say it’s about child sex tourism, which France’s government is campaigning against. But it also involves a politician’s sex life, which many French consider private business, and a public figure’s recognition of his homosexuality.

“We must not confuse pedophilia and homosexuality,” Mitterrand said on TF1, visibly upset by days of high-profile criticism.

He said his book was neither a memoir nor a novel. “I preferred to leave things vague,” he said.

Asked whether he made a mistake in paying for sex in Thailand with “boys,” he said: “An error, without a doubt. A crime, no.”

“Each time I was with people who were my age, or who were five years younger – there wasn’t the slightest ambiguity – and who were consenting,” he said.

He has said that he uses the term “boys” loosely, in his life and in the book.

The far-right National Front party says it went looking for dirt on Mitterrand after his praise for Polanski.

“Frederic Mitterrand must resign because his presence in the government as a representative of France is an indelible stain (for) the entire world,” National Front Vice President Marine Le Pen said Thursday. Le Pen triggered the controversy earlier this week.

Leftists joined in. Socialist Arnaud Montebourg said Thursday that Mitterrand “deliberately acted in violation of national and international laws” and appealed to Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon to fire him.

“It is impossible that a minister representing France can encourage violation of his own international commitments to fight sexual tourism,” Montebourg’s statement said.

In the book, written in the first person, Mitterrand’s narrator describes being taunted in childhood by peers and being troubled by his attraction to other boys.

In Bangkok, surrounded by “boys” or “kids” who tell him in broken English “I want you happy,” he finds a liberty he never had when he was a child.

“Money and sex, I am at the heart of my system, that which is functioning at last, because I know that no one will refuse me. … I can at last choose. The Western morality, the endless guilt, the shame that I drag with me, shatter,” one passage reads.

France Police, a minority police union, announced plans Thursday to seek a judicial investigation against Mitterrand under part of the penal code that makes it a crime to frequent prostitutes who are minors.

The book raised no more than literary eyebrows when it was published, and it drew little attention when Mitterrand was named to the government in June. Until he became France’s guardian of culture, Mitterrand was known primarily as a television personality who made eloquent profiles of the famous.

The culture minister’s uncle, President Mitterrand, was a classic example of the hands-off policy applied to politicians’ private lives by the French media and his colleagues, many aware for years of his daughter born out of wedlock – and whom he introduced to the nation before dying of cancer.

The justices turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.

Several newspapers are seeking the release of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests.

The records have been under seal since the diocese settled the cases in 2001. Courts in Connecticut have ruled that the papers should be made public.

The decision ends a legal battle that dragged on for years and could shed light on how recently retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan handled the allegations when he was Bridgeport bishop.

It’s unclear when the documents will be released.

Waterbury Superior Court clerk Philip Groth said he needs to consult a judge to determine whether a hearing is necessary before the records are released. He said Monday morning it was unlikely the documents would be released Monday.

Telephone messages were left Monday for the diocese and an attorney for the newspapers.

A Waterbury Superior Court said in 2006 that the documents were subject to a presumption of public access. The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision.

Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, welcomed the decision.

“This decision sends a clear message to those who would endanger kids: eventually, you’ll have to face the music and reveal your callousness, recklessness and deceit,” Blaine said in a statement. “We hope that this ruling will deter every pedophile’s supervisor and co-workers from protecting a predator.”

She urged Bridgeport Bishop William E. Lori to disclose how much the diocese spent in church donations on the case.

Mark Hourigan is also a sex offender. Almost a decade ago, long before he joined the flock at the City of Refuge Worship Center, he was convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in central Kentucky. Hourigan served a five-year sentence and the 41-year-old was placed on Kentucky’s sex offender registry for the rest of his life.

A former leader at the church along with an abuse victims advocacy group say Hourigan is a risk to hurt another child and he should not have been placed in a position of authority.

“He’s still a threat” to children, said Cal Pfeiffer, who was abused by a Catholic priest as a young student in Louisville in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Pfeiffer and experts on religion and sexual abuse believe it could be the first time a convicted sex offender has been knowingly ordained as a minister in a Christian church.

“It sets a precedent,” said Pfeiffer, a member of a group that has protested Hourigan’s ordination. “It elevates him to an ordained minister which almost automatically conveys a level of trust and responsibility.”

The church’s pastor, the Rev. Randy Meadows, ordained Hourigan during a service on Sept. 13. The self-described Pentecostal church, started by Meadows and a handful of other members six years ago, welcomes anyone “regardless of race, religion, culture (or) sexual orientation,” according to its Web site. It also has a Sunday school for children.

Meadows declined several requests from The Associated Press for an interview, but said in a brief phone conversation that the church has not experienced any backlash based on the decision to ordain a convicted pedophile.

“We’re just finished with the whole ordeal with everything, so we’re moving on,” Meadows said.

There was no phone listing for Hourigan and no one answered the door during a reporter’s two visits to the apartment listed on Hourigan’s sex offender registration.

Church members aren’t talking about it, either. Several calls to members listed on the church’s Web site were not returned; people outside the church declined to comment to reporters during two visits to the church as services were beginning or ending.

But a pastor and friend to Meadows who attended Hourigan’s ordination said the church’s board gave Meadows and Hourigan its full support.

“It was a really beautiful ceremony,” said the Rev. Aletha Fields, a high school teacher and gay rights activist. “The sanctuary was full because there were people from out of town.”

Fields, who sometimes serves as a guest pastor, said she asked Meadows about why he decided to make Hourigan a church leader.

“I asked him flat out about it because I wanted to get behind his thinking,” she said. Meadows believes firmly in the “redemptive power of Jesus Christ,” and told her Hourigan had served his prison term and completed probation.

“I believe they followed Biblical principle,” Fields said.

One of the church’s founders, Kevin Pickerrell, said he left last year over plans to ordain Hourigan. He said Meadows assured church members that Hourigan wouldn’t minister to children, but Pickerrell continued to balk at the idea of ordaining Hourigan.

Pickerrell said Meadows believed that Hourigan had been reformed.

“He tried to convince me that Mark had changed,” Pickerrell said of Meadows.

Hourigan said in an interview with CNN in September that wants to minister to others like him “who have been rejected.” Hourigan said he has learned not to put himself in situations where he might be tempted and to seek counsel when he’s having “emotional problems … so it doesn’t turn into something that it has in the past.”

Pickerrell said Hourigan “has an illness that you can’t cure.”

Recidivism rates are high for sex offenders, with more than half reoffending, said Keith F. Durkin, a criminologist at Ohio Northern University who has studied pedophiles. He said that rate increases when the crimes involve prepubescent children, like Hourigan’s victim.

“I cannot possibly see him being reformed,” Durkin said. “(Sexual desire) is the most powerful drive we have as a human and (for a child sexual abuser) it’s kids.”

Pickerrell said Hourigan was a “wonderful” music leader at the church and was well-liked when Pickerrell attended services. But he and Pfeiffer said they worry that Hourigan can present himself as a minister to strangers who don’t know his past.

Hourigan was arrested on one count each of first-degree sodomy and sexual abuse in Marion County, Ky., in 1998, according to court records. An indictment said the abuses occurred between 1993 and 1994. Hourigan pleaded guilty a year later to two counts of sexual abuse. The terms of Hourigan’s parole, which he completed in June 2008, included an order that he not serve in any leadership capacity at a church with youths.

Pfeiffer’s group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), sent a letter to the church but Pfeiffer said members have not responded.

Pastor Meadows, as a Pentecostal, may hold a strong belief in the healing power of the Holy Spirit, which could explain why he believes Hourigan can be reformed, experts said.

They “believe absolutely anybody can be healed of absolutely anything, no exceptions,” said Paul Alexander, a professor of Theology and Ethics at Azusa Pacific University in California.

Meadows told CNN that Hourigan’s faith has helped him reform, but he pledged to monitor the former sex offender closely.

“I don’t take anything lightly when it comes to someone’s past,” Meadows said.

“Inside the Mind of Mark Foley” will begin airing Sept. 22 on WSVU in North Palm Beach.

Foley taped his first show Tuesday. The station says Foley will explore the inner workings of Washington on the show.

Foley resigned his House seat in 2006 after being confronted with salacious e-mails and instant messages he sent to underage congressional pages.

He lives in West Palm Beach, and also works in real estate investment.

Foley represented parts of Palm Beach County for 12 years in Congress and built a national reputation as an advocate for tougher laws against child sexual predators.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said agent Christopher Aller and agent trainee Jason Chapman, who participated in the June 28 raid at the Rainbow Lounge, were fired Friday. Their supervisor, Sgt. Terry Parsons, was not at the Fort Worth bar that night but also was fired, effective Sept. 2.

Aller and Chapman failed to report that they used force when arresting the customer or that he was seriously injured, according to a report on the agency’s investigation released earlier this month. They also were accused of participating in the raid without their supervisor’s approval, disrupting the business during the raid and wearing improper attire, the report states.

Parsons failed to ensure that the agents submitted a report on using force during the arrest, did not take appropriate action after learning they didn’t wear proper attire and did not notify supervisors that multiple arrests had been made that night, the report states.

The commission said Parsons’ direct supervisor, Lt. Gene Anderson, would be suspended without pay for three days and be on probation for six months, and Capt. Robert “Charlie” Cloud, who oversees the Dallas and Fort Worth TABC offices, has received a written reprimand. Both inadequately monitored new agents’ training and inadequately supervised Fort Worth employees and their activities, the agency said.

In announcing the disciplinary actions, the agency’s chief of field operations, Joel Moreno, said he was confident that Anderson and Cloud could make the necessary improvements.

“The first step is by working more closely with their employees, mentoring them and serving as positive role models by exemplifying the agency’s four cornerstones: service, courtesy, integrity, and accountability,” Moreno said in a statement. “It is essential that every employee understands our core value: We do the right thing, not what we have the right to do.”

TABC Administrator Alan Steen, who will make the final decision on any appeals, was not available to comment Friday, agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck said.

The five may protest their disciplinary actions by submitting a written grievance in the next 10 working days.

Aller, who had worked for the agency for five years, and Chapman, who was hired in April, had been on desk duty during the investigation. Parsons had planned to retire Sept. 2 after completing 20 years with the agency but had been using vacation time.

Phone numbers for the fired employees could not be found Friday. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Officers Association has not been asked to provide representation for the three, president Darryl Darnell said Friday.

Another sergeant will be transferred from Fort Worth to the Dallas office next week “for the betterment of the agency and to create change in the office,” but that is not considered disciplinary action, Beck said.

Aller and Chapman accompanied six Fort Worth police officers to the Rainbow Lounge in what police billed as a routine liquor license inspection for a new business. Six people were arrested for public intoxication, and one patron, Chad Gibson, suffered a severe head injury while in the agents’ custody, the agency and police have said.

Gibson, who was hospitalized for a week, has said he has a blood clot behind his right eye.

Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead has said authorities set out to inspect the bar that night. But he acknowledged the visit somewhat resembled a raid because some police officers ran inside, responding to an officer’s two distress calls seeking help with a customer resisting arrest. The two TABC agents were wearing improper attire – shirts that said “state police” instead of coats and ties – and they didn’t tell the owner they were conduction an inspection, the agency said.

Since the raid, the agency has changed several policies – including how it uses force in certain situations – and is shortening agents’ shifts, increasing cultural diversity training and reviewing the agent trainee field training program, Moreno said.

“Most of these were not as a direct result of this incident, but we hope they will prevent a similar incident from happening,” Beck said Friday.

The raid led to numerous protest marches and rallies by gay rights groups, which demanded independent investigations. Some said the bar was targeted because it catered to a gay clientele, and some patrons said they were scared during the raid because agents used excessive force.

A group formed after the raid, Fairness Fort Worth, said Friday that the disciplinary actions and policy changes were appropriate.

“Fairness Fort Worth appreciates TABC’s strong commitment to instituting changes that result in better trained agents and improvements to services for all Texas communities,” spokesman Jon Nelson said in a statement.

A report addressing whether the agents’ use of force was appropriate during the raid is expected to be released in September.

“Due to recent events, I have decided to focus my full attention on my family and resign my Senate seat effective August 10,” Republican Sen. Paul Stanley wrote in his resignation letter.

Court records show that Stanley, 47, told agents investigating a blackmail case that he had a sexual relationship with intern McKensie Morrison. Her boyfriend, Joel Watts, is charged with trying to extort $10,000 from Stanley in April. Investigators say Watts demanded the money in exchange for not releasing to the media explicit photos of Morrison that Stanley had taken in what appears to be Stanley’s apartment.

The senator, a married father of two who represents suburban Memphis, had signaled he would remain in the legislature, but he said Tuesday that he decided to step down about an hour before submitting his resignation letter. Stanley, who was elected to the Senate in 2006 after serving six years in the state House, had resigned last week as chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee.

A special election will be held to fill the seat in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Stanley’s legislative proposals were largely focused on pro-business issues, but he also sponsored failed measures to ban gay couples from adopting children. He also spoke out against funding for Planned Parenthood because he said unmarried people should not have sex.

“Whatever I stood for and advocated, I still believe to be true,” he said during an interview Tuesday with Memphis radio station WREC-AM. “And just because I fell far short of what God’s standard was for me and my wife, doesn’t mean that that standard is reduced in the least bit.”

Morrison’s phone numbers are redacted from her legislative internship application, and efforts to reach her were unsuccessful Tuesday. Her father said he didn’t want to talk about the situation.

“It’s a family matter, and I’m going to approach it that way,” Will Morrison said.

According to court records, Morrison is married to a man who is serving a seven-year prison sentence in Florida but that he has filed for divorce.

Watts said in an interview with a Nashville TV station last week that he blamed Stanley for taking advantage of Morrison

Chad Gibson had bruises, muscle strain and bleeding in his brain after his arrest more than a week ago on suspicion of public intoxication at the Rainbow Lounge.

Police have said the 26-year-old injured himself when he fell and hit his head. Witnesses say officers slammed him into the wall and floor and tackled other patrons who were arrested that night.

Police say some of the bar patrons made sexual gestures toward the officers and allege Gibson grabbed a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officer’s groin. In interviews after his release from the hospital Sunday, Gibson denied groping the officer.

The Alaska governor spoke in taped interviews on ABC, NBC, Fox News Channel and CNN broadcast Tuesday morning.

She told CNN that “all options are on the table” for her future, and told Fox she doesn’t know what the future holds.

But told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she recognizes she might not have political staying power after her surprise resignation Friday, which came just as she had been expected to elevate her national profile ahead of a possible 2012 GOP presidential run.

“I said before … ‘You know, politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it,’” she said.

Speaking in fishing waders from the town of Dillingham, Palin said her administration has been paralyzed by fending off frivolous lawsuits.

“I’m not going to take the comfortable path. I’m going to take the right path for the state,” she said of her resignation, which she characterized as a matter of progressing in an unconventional way.

“That caught people off guard. … It’s out of the box and unconventional. That’s what we are as Alaskans and certainly how I am as a public servant.”

Palin said she doesn’t think she needs a title to bring about “positive change,” but added that she can’t see herself being totally out of public service. She criticized President Barack Obama, a possible sign she’s looking toward the 2012 presidential race.

“Average, hardworking Americans need to be able to get out there, unrestrained, and fight for what is right, fight for energy independence and national security, fight for a smaller government instead of this big government overgrowth that Obama is ushering in,” Palin told Fox News Channel.

The outgoing Alaska governor told the Anchorage Daily News she stepped down because ethics complaints against her and her squabble with lawmakers would have paralyzed the 18 months she had left in office.

“Especially when all these lawmakers are lining up for office,” she said. “Their desire would be to clobber the administration left and right so that they can position themselves for office. I’m not going to put Alaskans through that.”

She told the paper she believes her replacement, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who will take office on July 26, will diffuse the controversy that surrounds her.

“With Sean in the governor’s seat, it won’t be the politics of personal destruction, I don’t believe,” Palin said.

She added she wasn’t sure what her next step would be.

“I can’t predict the next fish run much less what’s going to happen in a few years,” she told the Daily News. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep working hard for Alaska.”

Palin has spent the past four days with her family, but she returned to work as Alaska governor Tuesday in a remote fishing village 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Palin was scheduled to appear in Kotzebue to sign a bill designed to bring public safety officers to small towns. Kotzebue, a town of about 3,000 people, is 550 miles northwest of Anchorage and lies on a spit of sand at the end of a peninsula.

There has been speculation that she has some legal issue that is not yet known to the public. But her lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that she has no legal problems whatsoever, and simply is tired of the hostile political climate, legal bills and other distractions.

“She is leaving now because I think she believes that she has become the issue, rightly or wrongly, with all these ethics complaints and with the issues involving the Legislature, the combativeness they’ve been demonstrating toward her since she returned from the campaign,” Thomas Van Flein said.

“I think she believes it’s in the best interest of the state to progress forward, for her to move on to other issues.”

Palin has become a lightning rod for partisan politics in Alaska since her return from the 2008 presidential campaign after John McCain selected her as his running mate for the GOP ticket. She has racked up an estimated $500,000 in legal bills defending the flurry of ethics complaints, including one filed Monday that alleges she is violating ethics law by taking per diem payments when she stays in her Wasilla home instead of the governor’s mansion in Juneau.

In addition, her relationship with Democrats in the state Senate – once among her staunchest allies – deteriorated in the last session.

At the state Capitol in Juneau, the “Time to Make a Difference” clock that counted the time left in Palin’s term was taken down from the wall outside her office. And people from around the country called up her office to inquire about the situation, as did a few cruise ship tourists who made the trek to the Capitol.

The young woman at the desk outside Palin’s office was busy answering phones.

“Yes, she is getting swamped with e-mails,” the woman tells one caller. “Yes, they do get forwarded to the appropriate person.”

“Unfortunately, we are having a back load of e-mails so it will take some to get a response,” she tells another.

Where is she? Why is she stepping down? When is her last day? Why so soon?

The tour guide tried to politely answer the questions for the tourists when she could, but for the most part had no answers.

Some of the visitors left Palin messages in a guest log.

“Sarah – Please Stay!” one person wrote.

Kathy Waldo-Gilbert, a registered Democrat from Iowa who was on her honeymoon in Alaska, said she was especially disappointed because she believes that Palin’s early departure from the governor’s job will make it harder for other women who want to be taken seriously in high-profile positions. Waldo-Gilbert voted Republican for the first time in last year’s presidential election.

“When things get hard, you stick around,” she said.

Erika Fagerstrom, executive residential manager at the governor’s mansion, said Palin and her family will be missed. Even though Palin lived most of the time at her home in Wasilla, she spent “quite a bit” of time at the stately columned mansion near the Capitol, she said.

“We are sad to see her go. They are a great family,” she said.

Palin will be succeeded by Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who has announced he will seek to retain the office in the 2010 election.

State Rep. John Harris, a former House speaker and Republican from Valdez, announced Monday that he’s preparing to file paperwork with state election officials in a bid for governor.