You do the math...

We have already written about this here, but Patrick S. Adams has posted such a clear, common sense explanation of why Sarah Palin resigned when she did, that we decided to revisit the topic, with Patrick's help. This excerpt is from his blog Liberty's Lamp:

It seems the less intellectually curious among us have taken Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska at face value. They think she quit. But when you dig a little deeper, it becomes more and more apparent that her resignation was probably the most crucial career saving decision of her life. This blogger has now come to accept that Sarah Palin's resignation was a brilliant and fantastic move.

Had Palin stayed on as governor, she would have just spiraled deeper and deeper into debt as the concerted smear campaign against her continued to pile on frivolous ethics complaint after frivolous ethics complaint. She did the math and realized that if she was ever going to be able to participate in leading a nation back to its greatness, she would not be able to do it from the poor house.

Palin could have served two terms as Alaska governor and ended up broke, disillusioned and politically devastated. Any attempts at reaching a national audience would have been viewed with contempt by local detractors and would have resulted in more ethics complaints. Without the ability to speak to the masses of those who yearn for her to take the reigns of the disaster we now call "the federal government," Palin was a lame duck governor in terms of national politics the minute she returned to Anchorage after the 2008 presidential campaign.

And on top of that, she was going broke.

When Sarah Palin sat down and figured out the finances, she realized that $125,000 a year minus $600,000 plus whatever other ethics violations were in the works means that she will end up with a net loss of at least $475,000. That's some fine reward for a great governor isn't it? And that's low balling it.

Since her resignation, here is the cocktail napkin explanation I've been giving to everyone who argues with me or simply asks me about her resignation:

Pro rate it like this:
4 years as Governor $500,000
Current ethics costs -$600,000
Projected new ethics costs -$400,000

Profit/Loss -$500,000

Then take into consideration the hits on her children.
Palin's choice: be Governor of Alaska and run up over $1 million in legal fees while having her children abused ruthlessly in the press or resign and make more than enough money on a book to pay back her debt and embark on a career as a private citizen political activist that would allow her to never quit on the real thing she's after: seeing our country return to greatness again.

You do the math. If you were her, wouldn't you quit, too?

Bravo Zulu, Patrick.

- JP