Alaskan governor and former vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin got in one last newscycle before the Fourth of July holiday weekend with a brief press conference from her home in Wasilla.  Answering no questions afterwards, Palin announced the largely anticipated move of refusing to run for re-election as Governor.  The real surprise came with subsequent reports that she would be resigning entirely in a few weeks, leaving the governor’s mansion just over halfway through her first term.

Only recently unseated by Mark Sanford as the go-to Republican for bizarre headlines, Palin’s announcement to resign will ignite a firestorm of speculation this weekend.  In the absence of a reason provided by the Governor herself, all kinds of conclusions can be drawn to her motive, though they’ll likely boil down to four scenarios.

Photo: J. Delanoy

(d)N0t has your guide to the most likely reasons for resignation of the right’s qualified cutie pie.

1) Senate Shell Game

Since a scandalized Stevens lost his run last year, Alaska’s senior senator is Republican Lisa Murkowski.  The only woman ever elected to Congress in the state’s history, Murkowski is up for re-election in 2010.

Though she is a moderate, Palin is unlikely to primary the popular senator who is responsible for blazing the trail she tried to ride to the White House.  Instead, we may be looking at a mid-summer Senate swap by Palin’s Lt. Gov Sean Parnell.

Murkowski was injured in a skiing accident last March that wrecked her knee and may be one of many Republican moderates growing tired of the party’s direction.  Sarah Palin is an obvious replacement, but not while she has responsibilities as governor.

2) Pulling Up Anchor for 2012

It’s tough to maintain a national profile from Alaska.  Though oil money is keeping the state insulated from the same budget crises affecting other governors, a state doesn’t exactly run itself.

Palin could be bailing early to make a significant impact in the midterms.  All of the infrastructure to run a national campaign she inherited in 2008; were she to make a serious bid against Barack Obama, she’d have to build all that over again from the rubble of a shattered party.  That kind of work takes time, more time than she’d have if she simply finished out her term.

If she makes a big dent in the national effort, she’d lock in the loyalty of a lot of state party chairs, lubricating a 2012 run.

3) Scandal

Perhaps the sex tape finally leaked.

Ew.

4) Getting Out of the Game

It is entirely possible the woman is getting out of politics altogether.  Her party is in shambles, her family has been manhandled by the media, and by any rational analysis, her agenda was soundly defeated in 2008.  She could be looking at her children (and grandchild) and deciding the whole thing just isn’t worth it.

She could easily bring home seven figures annually producing a book a year and making a speech a month.  Or, alternately, she could go back to her education and become a Fox News “analyst.”  More money waits for her in the private sector than in the public, with less public exposure to her kids.

However unlikely one might initially regard this final scenario, her remarks at the conference had all the hallmarks of a gal getting out of the game.  She called politics a “superficial, wasteful bloodsport” and that she’ll try to “affect positive change” from outside government.

The smart money may not be better on it, but Palin may be smarter than all of us by taking the money and staying home.

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