I understand your argument. You think so much of your lengths of time that you need to put them in CAPS. What you haven’t explained is the exact line, in time, when it becomes, for lack of a better term, “acceptable quitting”. The voters of Kansas were deprived of Bob Dole’s services as a Senator for 2 AND A HALF YEARS when he quit.
If your argument has anything to do with quitting a job that the voters hired you to do, it matters little how many months of campaigning they have to do. Why at all, to the voters of Kansas or Alaska, does it matter how many months or years away a Presidential election is? The voters elected Dole to a Senate term - he had more than 2 years left. The voters elected Palin to a Gubernatorial term - she had less than 2 years left.
The difference being that in the case of Dole resigning, he left a seat vacant, while Gov. Palin resigning simply moves the current Lt. Governor up, no vacancy.
It seems to me that with her opponents/enemies creating a situation wherein she is unable to effectively serve the people of Alaska, impeded from getting anything done because she has to deal with the frivolous and fraudulent ethics baloney, not to mention how much that is costing the Alaskan tax-payers, (I don't include the personal bill being tolled), her stepping aside this way is actually better serving the people of the state than *sticking it out* for the remainder of her term, only to have more piled on, more cost to her constituents.
I am not ready to declare that she is actually considering another office, I don't see this move as conducive to that. I do, however, see it as a public servant doing what is deemed the best for the people she directly responds to, the citizenry.