The Sunshine Empire

The saga of Governor Sarah Palin’s resignation continues to baffle those in the political media but the reviews are almost universally bad. Troubled sinus patient Karl Rove made no effort to seriously defend her move to flake out and run away from the Alaska Governorship. Those who said that she was done with politics were obviously running a smoke screen for her random Mark Sanfordesque resignation presser. But most seem to believe that there has to be some kind of other back story to attribute her decision to resign abruptly on a holiday weekend. Now the rumors floated that she was being investigated by the FBI is false, but that just seems to open more questions than resolve. Does she really think that resigning mid first term is going to give her more time to become a viable candidate? Now it is true that Palin would be facing a narrow field with all the other names that had been bandied about self destructing with sex scandals. Yet how exactly will she repel the obvious attack of her being a quitter and lacking experience? Mitt Romney can eat her for lunch with his background in any Republican 2012 primary. Sarah Palin is essentially a base type candidate, but the base campaigns of this decade are a thing of the past. How does Palin build some kind of larger tent for her campaign other than the 20% of wing-nuts out there who love her because she’s homespun? I can’t see it happening but this entire debacle may have taken another of the fringe candidates that have populated the Republican party over the last 20 out of the picture. The Republicans have been looking to find their way against President Obama. Perhaps with Palin, Sanford and the like out of the way a moderate Republican can find his or her legs and be able to emerge in 2012.