Believe me, I am beside myself trying to figure this one out. Why did Sarah Palin resign? Is this a strategic political move, or is this a move out of politics all together for a governor who craved headlines almost as much as Rod Blagojevich? Resigning and claiming that she was “not wired” to be governor does not smack of brilliance; she might have let Alaskans in on that epiphany before she ran for office.

I suspect there’s something else going on here.

Max Blumenthal speculates in The Daily Beast that Palin’s resignation is an attempt to avert a major scandal:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an additional $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

Prior to her sudden announcement, Palin gave every indication that she intended to complete her tenure as governor.

Blumenthal relates a report from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell to the effect that Palin “has told some of her biggest backers in the national Republican Party that they are free to choose other candidates for 2012.”

Honestly, I don’t see how this is any kind of political strategy except to map an exit to the door.

This could be Palin’s curtain call. If that’s the case, I wish her well. She may be returning to the soccer fields of Alaska.

Until the Alaska Attorney General comes calling.