Replies

You indicated your disingenuousness with these four words: "...for no good reason."

Short of overwhelming scandal, criminal activity, or genuine health reasons (you or immediate family), there IS NO GOOD REASON for quitting an office you convinced a majority of the citizens of your state to elect you to -- quitting, in this case, 18 months before the end of her only term. She cited ethics complaints filed against her as the reason.

Ethics complaints? Like that hasn't become routine in American politics. So what was she running from? Was she guilty of ethics violations? Or did she have too thin a political skin to fight the charges? Why did she let those bringing the charges run her out of Dodge? Why leave it all just hanging there as ripe fruit for a future political campaign (if such there will ever be)?

These are legitimate questions that will be raised if she runs for president, and she'll need to answer with more than glib one-liners and whining about those dastardly opponents.

Running for president is a whole 'nother ball game from running for any other office in our nation, including vice president.

The premise of the original poster's questions concerned what might trip Palin up. This area of inquiry is one strong possibility. If her supporters can't even handle it in a web forum, and react by attacking the messenger instead of addressing the core issue, what's going to happen in the white-hot time of a presidential campaign?

Adding one more good reason for quitting an elective office prior to the end of your term -- to concentrate on running for a higher office. Most politicians don't do that, however. Palin didn't, as she remained governor throughout the 2008 campaign. She quit effective July 26, 2009, choosing to turn tail and run from what she said was politically motivated ethics complaints. If that's true, then why not stay and fight it out? Why leave it hanging unresolved?

Strangely, she quit several months after she was supposedly cleared of ethics violations the previous October.

Any reasonable independent -- and that's who we're talking about reaching here -- could conclude either that she reneged on her commitment to the people of Alaska for no good reason, or she was running from more brewing scandals. The only way it gets resolved in a way that won't turn off independents is for Palin to address the matter squarely and forthrightly.

She doesn't need to convince people like you who already support her staunchly. She needs to convince enough voters who aren't already in her camp to come over to her side.