Sarah made it clear why she was leaving early. To stay in office, after deciding not to run for re-election would only embolden those who had been filing complaints since Aug. of 2008. She didn't think it right to waste the taxpayers' money fighting those complaints, because any use of her or her staff's time would have done just that. If she had to spend half her time fighting complaints, she didn't use that time profitably for the state.
Given those same circumstances, I think Reagan and Bush would have done EXACTLY the same thing.
You have got to be kidding.
Reagan and Bush would have seen it through to the end of the term, if doing nothing else. Because they fully understood that quitting in the middle of your first term simply gives your enemies a big fat victory on a bright silver platter. In the end, they would have known better than to do that.
All these idiots that have been filing these complaints can legitimately claim a big victory.
From this point forward, her detractors will claim that she really couldn't defend herself from the corruption charges and decided that it was best to simply "cut and run". She wasn't even able to complete her first term in Alaska, so she's "damaged goods".
And all this talk about "not wanting to waste the taxpayers' money" is basically an excuse.
That is exactly how this is going to be portrayed over the next couple of years.