Let’s face it. Politicians do not give up title or power easily. Even when caught with their hands in the cookies in the jar they fight to retain it, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Here though she seems to have just thrown in the towel. Nor do they give it up just because of the fear of lame duck status. It’s something that almost all politicians go through and many seem to thrive in.
If someone else, be it Democrat and Republican has quit citing her reasons everyone would assume something seriously wrong is coming on the horizon. That here is something they are trying to get ahead of for whatever reason. However, this is Sarah Palin so this could be part of a rather broad and bizarre plan that only she knows (who is really a series of low expectations, not exactly confidence inducing or very Presidential).
The assumption is this is the first salvo of a Presidential run. Quitting doesn't seem like a very good start, especially giving weak excuses that come down to "people are mean to me!" If she can't handle bad press, false accusations, and occasional forced compromises, how is she going to handle the real pressures of the White House especially when the attacks are constant and on multiple fronts?
Another problem is NONE of the major news services were invited to this rather significant piece of news. Politicians love the power of the camera. The footage and discussions on the major networks are from reporters and video shot by local TV stations. CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, etc were not informed of her resignation preventing a live broadcast of her speech. This prevented a massive audience from seeing her full speech and hear her perspective of events, something most politicians love to occur and make every effort to help facilitate (which is why usually these things occur for the noon or six o'clock news cycle). Instead this was done as under the radar as possible for someone in the spotlight as much as she is.
Even now her own spokesperson is blaming the press and saying people are trying to bring her down. See above about inability to handle attacks so how handle pressures of White House. Also though what attacks could she be referring to? The previous year? Really? She got it light compared to most and why now? Or to put it another way, what straw broke the camel’s back? Letterman? I don't think so. Makes you wonder though.
One last theory is money. She is beautiful and she is charming. People have said she could make a ton of money as a pundit or on television in some capacity and the money would be very good, more then she would make as a Senator or President with about the same amount of fame. Most talking heads are not required to know anything a given subject, just read a teleprompter and ask questions provided by your producer. Fox would probably happily give Palin an hour on their network five nights a week for instance.
In the end if this is the start of a Presidential campaign then as someone who would never vote for her, I give her and her advisors a hearty thank you for such an awful start.
seems like she probably didn't want people to spend much time thinking about this since she announced it the Friday before July 4th
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