No one is going to remember or really care about Palin resiigning as Governor early by 2012. She's going to do well because she's widely percieved as the right's answer to Hillary. She brings out intense envy or distain from Beltway people, which in turn fuels the comeback that they're attacking her because she's a woman (the same card Hillary was able to play to deflect scrutiny over the years). As Rockwell wrote in his blog yesterday:
"Last fall, just after the election, the late Burt Blumert predicted that the campaign against Sarah would never end, for two reasons. One, the liberal women and their men of the Democratic party hate her looks and her refusal to have an abortion, not to speak of her decision to have five children or to shoot moose. Two, they feared she was the one Republican who could beat Obama in 2012. Too bad she is an unreflective warmonger and is pals with Bill Kristol, but she has picked up on the issue that powered Nixon-Agnew to victory—middle American dislike of the mainstream media, a dislike that still typifies the Republican base all these years later."