Sarah Palin: Quitter?

Sarah Palin has announced that she will not run for reelection as Alaska Governor. And she plans to resign from her post later this month.

There is speculation that she plans to start soon on a run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Oh joy.

There's a quote in the NPR story on this that caught my eye.

She said she had decided against running for re-election as Alaska's governor, and believed it was best to leave office even though she had two years left to her term.

"Many just accept that lame duck status, and they hit that road. They draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I'm not going to put Alaskans through that," she said.

Excuse me? Weren't you elected to do a job? Isn't that job to run the government of the state of Alaska? For four years?

Leaving now, with the job not finished, seems like cheating the people of Alaska; leaving them behind to seek something better for yourself. That's not cool.

Maybe if you were closer to the end of your term, or we were actually in the 2012 cycle and you were clearly going to be the nominee. This early, though, just seems selfish.