Patterson vs. Palin

Seth's Blog: The joy of quitting

It's an fascinating idea.

The governor of New York faces an interesting choice.

He can do the natural thing, the thing with momentum, the thing he's been trained to do his entire life: run for a full term. That involves raising a lot of money, living on the road, compromising a lot to gain support and almost certainly losing, probably in the primary.

Or, he can quit. He can win the embrace of his party, of power brokers and his family by quitting now, as opposed to losing later.

It just would have been better if he had done it before anyone suggested it.  Doing it now, I don't see that he wins "the embrace of his party."  Rather, they'll just consider him a chump.  Which they already do.

There's a needle here that he can thread, where he keeps his dignity, reputation, and influence.  I don't know what it is.  And Patterson probably doesn't either.  If he did, he could get reelected.

Palin's resignation is what Patterson could have done.