She is inexperienced and needed more time in office to learn and grow as a leader.
Sorry, I know how much she is loved, but it seems to me that she is interested in going on a speaking circuit to cash in on her popularity. The pessimist in me says she quit before she had to do unpopular things, and became unbankable.
It is a pity, because I believe she had great promise and was the best hope the republican party had for a real leader. If she had only stayed on as Governor to learn the craft of leadership....
I don’t know about the “cash[ing] in” part of your post, but I agree that more growth as leader would be nice, if not necessary. I’ll admit that I don’t know her life story, but she obviously has some experience as a leader (definitely more than Zero) and it may be enough. Also, we are at a critical point in time and a strong conservative voice is needed. If she is that voice, it will turn out be great timing heading into 2010. We shall find out.