Quitter?
People love Sarah Palin or they love to hate her. Now the lovers and the haters disagree on her future, now that she’s said she’ll step down as governor of Alaska: Either she’s finished in politics or she is shrewdly preparing for a comeback. Palin rode into national politics with grit and brass and shot some life into the struggling presidential campaign of Republican John McCain. Love her or hate her, you can’t say she didn’t liven up the race. The mainstream media didn’t think she was ready for Washington, and they let her know. Her limited experience and lack of knowledge about national and international issues gave pause even to people who liked her. Conservatives admired her gumption and values, even if they wished she had benefited from a little more seasoning before running for vice president.
The attacks on her and her family didn’t let up even after she and McCain lost. In some cases they got meaner, with David Letterman being only the most famous example. Sift through the Internet sludge if you want to see the really ugly stuff.
It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right what happened to her. The ugliness matched what was hurled at Hillary Rodham Clinton when she arrived in Washington.
But if Palin wants to remain an influential person on a national level, she will have to stop taking the personal attacks so personally. Easy to say, of course, but there is no alternative for those who want to be out front.
Now she is going to have another name thrown in her face: quitter. Nobody who knows Palin thinks of her that way, but she is walking away from a job she begged voters to give her.
Palin isn’t likely to disappear like an Alaskan wildflower with the first snow. She could make another run at politics, go on a speaking tour to make money or launch her own talk show.
A comeback won’t be easy. But just the other day, she was a hockey mom little known outside of Wasilla, a town unheard of by most of us. She’s already come a long way.