Time to Quit? You Betcha!

So let's say for a moment that you are found from the political obscurity of Alaska, Russia's neighbor, and are suddenly placed on a national ticket to become the Vice President of the United States. Throughout the next three months, you are largely shielded by a campaign while clearly asserting your future national ambitions. After some slip ups and winks, your ticket is crushed on election day. But your national ambitions are not over. You now have four years to prove that your inexperience and lack of knowledge of the issues are not truly reflective of you while deciding on a run at the top of the Republican national ticket. So what is the best way to go about proving yourself to the American public? To a country that is known for standing up when times get tough, for rising to every occasion, for asserting its ultimate strength even in its times of incomprehensible tragedy and weakness?  Well if your name is Sarah Palin, then apparently the way to prove yourself is to quit. 

What Sarah Palin did is incredibly difficult to analyze. On July 3rd, the eve of America's national independence, Palin apparently decided the time was right to step down as Governor of Alaska. Why? Well, she didn't give many reasons, other than to say that she didn't want to be a lame duck governor and she wasn't going to run for re-election. Without mincing my words, what an absolutely pathetic example to set for future politicians. So is her argument that any lame duck politician should simply resign and forgo the rest of their term? She was elected to a four-year term, and how can she expect the voters to entrust her with the responsibilities of running a state when she is always looking for the next best thing. Should President Bush have resigned on November 5th, 2008, since he had become a lame duck President? Or should he simply have resigned on January 21st, 2005 since he couldn't run for another term. According to Palin's logic, a politician should only stay in office for as long as they are looking towards another election. How about spending the next 18 months doing the people's business that you were elected to do? The work that you did so well while you were off campaigning in every state but Alaska from August 29th until Election Day last year. 

So what were your real motives, Sarah Palin? Do you think the best way to vault yourself to the Presidency is to prove yourself a quitter? When John McCain, an honorable man, suspended his campaign last fall to focus solely on the economic crisis, now-President Barack Obama chided McCain for being unable to focus on more than one issue, something which any president must undoubtedly face on a daily basis. McCain's loss on Election Day may not have been a direct reflection of his decision to suspend his campaign, but it certainly didn't help him. So what Sarah Palin has done is taken McCain's prerogative to a whole new level, assuming that her true ambitions are to run for the presidency in 2012. Americans do not quit, and Americans do not elect quitters to become the leader of the free world. There are other possibilities as well. Was Palin facing more federal charges and felt it was wiser to resign and avoid the public eye rather than having to continually face these charges? The FBI has confirmed that they were not currently investigating Palin, and so this reasoning seems implausible. Rather, I believe that Palin truly is looking for something to vault her into the public eye, to attempt a Richard Nixon, as he lost the California Governorship and then went into helping Republican candidates get elected and ultimately running for, and winning, the presidency in 1968. However, even in Nixon's case, he didn't quit, he lost an election. Sarah Palin, you quit. Your intelligence, your knowledge of the issues, and your grasp of American ideals were questionable to begin with. As a quitter, you have simply confirmed that you do not reflect the ideals of America. All you have done is abandon the only people who have ever elected you to public office, the Alaskans. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Or in Sarah Palin's case, when the going gets tough, then it's time to quit. Right. Good luck with that presidential campaign. I wouldn't quite start painting the Sarah Palin presidential portrait quite yet. President Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, and the 42 men who have held the ultimate office in America before them have not been quitters. Sarah Palin isn't about to be the first.