Here’s something to consider:
Obama quits Senate after 46 months–21 of them seeking another job

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/obama-senate.html

…

They do not like the rich they say, they do not like rednecks they say, they do not like provincial suburbanites they say…Just who do they like?

Palin was the Governor, not a Marine. In other words no one will die because she did this. She has a responsibility to her family and herself as well. In fact if she and McCain had won she would have resigned and under those circumstances no one would have accused her of abandoning anything.

We do not know everything that is going on here, but one thing is for sure, Republicans need to do a better job of fighting back.

That depends, Toes. It depends upon where she goes. Does she retreat? Or, does she go to the frontline of the battle? The frontline of the battle, afterall, isn’t in Alaska. Nor is it in the world of Governorships.

How much longer must we continue to take the high road in the face of a growing mountain of evidence that is it no more than unilateral disarmament? I can think of a couple of jokes that punch right back at those who are backed by the people who smeared Palin.

As Londo Mollari said in the first season of Babylon 5, “Blood cries out for blood.”

Sarah Palin decided that she couldn’t do very much from where she was. As governor, she was spending something like 80% of her time defending herself against bulls__t ethics charges instead of actually serving her state. What the hell was she supposed to do when she was part of a system that let anybody with a mean streak file one “mopery with intent to creep” charge after another against her with no cost whatsoever to themselves?

The woman has served her state exceptionally well, having done more before “quitting” than most governors do in their entire terms. But no matter — she “quit” and is unacceptable as a leader. No wonder conservatives lose elections — too damned many of them refuse to stick up for one another, or even for the people they had admired and looked up to. Disappoint them once and they’re through with you.

In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You’re a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they’re tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who’d never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a “cancer”.

Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it’ll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You’ve got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who’s given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to – what’s the word? – “empathize”? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you’d have to turn into under that scenario?

National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.

No one will say she should have been aborted.