Palin may not have been the best hope for Republicans in 2012, but she was one. No more. Her scheme amounted to a cockamamie stunt, almost of a McCain variety: draw all sorts of attention to herself and then campaign full-time for 4 years.

The problems, of course, are numerous. First off, nobody will vote for a quitter. And if she was to be a real reformer, then she needed to prove her reforms had staying power by running for re-election and winning. Instead, she ran off. Now I can understand running off for personal reasons or because the stress to her and her family was too great, but that’s not my sense (certainly not when she appears to be doing publicity tours).

As soon as I read about her stunt I said I’m guessing that Bill Kristol whispered something incredibly stupid into her ear. And a cursory search around the Internet showed that he was (apparently) the only one to have anything positive to say about it. Why anybody would listen to or publish Kristol is a mystery to me, but there it is.

I should just hope for her sake that she is leaving to take a talk-show job or something. Because if she was really planning to vault into the presidency by quitting as governor early, she is dumber than her detractors claim, which is pretty bad.

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