1. The winter in Valley Forge when George Washington, realizing that his leadership had fully demoralized his troops, quit for the good of the cause and went home to write a book.
2. The time when Abe Lincoln realized that his Presidency so pissed off half of the country that they actually split...he of course realized that he couldn't govern effectively if half the country wanted to kill him, so he quit and went home to write a book.
Don’t forget Governor Palin of Alaska resigning her Alaskan office to lead a national conservative movement and how she turned 2009 into an entirely different year than it would have been without her fighting Obama on the front pages of America.
It sure beat what would have been Mitt Romney’s face representing the conservatives and the republicans.