I'm not fond of depictions of Palin and her family as (in TBogg's phrase) Snowbillies, of discussions of her family, of her daughter and her life, or other aspects that reduce her personal foibles to the stuff of serious discussion. These distractions from the many reasons to be wary of her as a politician, captured nicely here by tristero (although I do not like the use of the word "hate" here), actually make her a sympathetic character. Part of what makes our politics less and less attractive to many people is the line between personal and public has been slowly erased over the past generation, to the point now where Gov. Mark Sanford waxes poetic on finding his soulmate at press conferences, and reporters continue to ignore the reality that he abandoned his office without leaving anyone in charge, regardless of the specific circumstances.
My guess is that Palin had her feelings hurt by recent revelations that her presence on the Republican ticket was viewed as a drag by members of the campaign staff; by the unfolding multiple investigations into possible criminal activity in the governor's office in Juneau; with her refusal to take federal stimulus funds, Palin is denying her state opportunities to build and repair infrastructure and improve employment.
In a place as cold as Alaska, serious heat must be difficult to take. The kitchen of the national spotlight and revelations of the many investigations in to her official conduct got to her, so she's leaving.
Buh-bye.
UPDATE: This interesting report on polls from the Presidential campaign last fall indicate something that, should it become widely-known, flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
The correspondence between dynamics in her ratings and dynamics in McCain vote intentions is astonishingly exact. Her marginal impact in vote-intention estimation models dwarfs that for any Vice-Presidential we are aware of, certainly for her predecessors in 2000 and 2004. And the range traversed by her favorability ratings is truly impressive. But why? We are unaware of any theory that opens the door to serious impact from the bottom half of the ticket.
Translated to mean - adding Sarah Palin to the ticket doomed McCain's chances at becoming President long before the economy went in to the tank. The first two graphs on the website, if juxtaposed, show quite clearly that Americans were running away from McCain before the financial crisis in September. It isn't the meltdown that doomed McCain, or his odd "suspension" of his Presidential campaign.
It was all Palin.
The moral of the story is simple. We have nothing to fear, electorally, from the right for a while. I believe even failure of Pres. Obama on major policy initiatives will not turn around Republican fortunes as long as they continue to adhere to far-right stances. All the blather is meaningless. The real worry isn't the right. It's corporate obstructionism to serious health-care reform, and bureaucratic obstructionism to repealing DADT. If the Democratic Party in Congress actually had some gumption, they'd laugh every time Mitch McConnell or some other doofus opens his or her mouth, and then go about the business of legislating.
The base loves her, but the truth is, the base is crazy.
