Sarah Barracuda Resigns

One of the last things I would have expected when I woke up this morning was an announcement that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was stepping aside by the end of the month.

Of course, my immediate thought was that something terrible had happened an she was leaving office to avoid the political fallout. At least that would have been better than what Mark Sanford is doing! But I absolutely believed that her political career was over, and the once presumed Republican frontrunner for 2012 would fade away into ignominy.

But after watching the video, her crazy decision actually makes a little bit of sense.

In the past year, she has been subjected to 15 ethics complaints, every single one of them dismissed with no finding that she has done anything wrong. But in the process, the state of Alaska has spent millions of dollars investigating the complaints and the Palins have spent $500,000 of their own money in legal fees. And so, in order for Alaska to weather the recession as a state, Palin must step aside and end the madness. If Alaska is better off without her as the governor, you have to really applaud her personal courage to risk her entire political career to benefit her state.

Moreover, I now think not only that she is not ending her political career, but also, if she is going to have any chance at winning the nomination, this is the way she has to do it.

In the short time America has known her, Sarah Palin has been pigeon-holed as an out of touch, inexperienced governor of the second least populous state, with no knowledge of national or international issues.

But now, Palin can spend the next three years touring America and the world, learning about issues, meeting with leaders and making herself more known to the public at large.

She can spend time campaigning in local, statewide, and national elections for good strong conservatives. If she can spend time getting even a handful more conservatives elected to office, she will have done a huge service to this country.

On the other hand, this gives a lot of ammunition to political opponents. "She's a quitter!" they will argue. And they're not wrong. But, she's not walking away in shame, or because she can't handle the pressure. She is walking away to benefit Alaska, her party, and just maybe her country.

The real question will be - how will this move play with the public. It seems that her detractors will hate it, her supporters will understand it and then rest won't know what to think. But three years is a long time and people have short memories. Hell, Hillary Clinton promised during her Senate re-election campaign that she would not run for President. A year later, she announced her candidacy. And people forgave her.

I think people will forgive Palin too - especially if she is able to shape the public image of this move. The mainstream media will attempt to slant it in the worst way possible, and they could very well win that fight. But again, they may just be preaching to the choir - a lot of people will never like Palin, no matter what she does. If this move enables Sarah to pick up support among people undecided about her, it will have been a great move. On the other hand, its hard to imagine what else she could do to expand her base of support. We'll just have to see where all this goes in the next few months/years.