Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Palin Quits Early — Again

Pulling out prematurely seems to be a pattern with Sarah Palin.

The former vice-presidential candidate, who resigned as governor of Alaska last summer with 18 months to go in her first term, left Thanksgiving Day’s five-kilometer Turkey Trot charity race in Kennewick, Wash., long before she reached the finish line.

Palin was in eastern Washington to visit relatives for Thanksgiving, and her Twitter announcement that she would participate in the race, organized by a local Red Cross chapter to benefit disaster relief, upped the number of spectators at the event. While some of the conservative Republican’s fans got to meet her, word spread about 40 minutes into the race that she had left to avoid crowds at the finish line. Still, organizers said they were grateful for the publicity she brought. “It just blows me away,” Jeanne Jelke, executive director of the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the Red Cross, told the Tri-City Herald.

Palin’s early exit, however, led blogger Wonkette to declare, “Winning stuff, or finishing things? Not for Sarah Palin!” On her visit to Washington State, Palin also told a local television reporter it was “too much work” to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving.

On Sunday, Palin resumed the tour to promote her memoir, Going Rogue, written with Lynn Vincent, who has been linked to antigay causes.

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