There appear to be three strategies in play to keep Sarah Palin from running for President:
1) Blow smoke up her skirt and tell her she's too good to run.
2) Attacks on her for being vapid.
3) Drag up her history in Alaska, including (and most recently) the "irregularities" of the birth of Trig.
The source of these attacks seems to be on the Right (although not within the Tea Party as far as I can tell) because the Left joyfully wishes her to run, largely because it would be a blowout.
Let's look at those strategies and how they've been employed and what data we can find on the sources behind them, below.
"Too Good" to run for President
This is a soft-glove approach to be sure. Whomever was the author of this strategy wanted to pull some social engineering on her to keep her on Discovery and Fox and not on the campaign trail.
Coulter on Palin: "A step down for Palin"
But it isn't just Coulter on this bandwagon...
• NetRightDaily (Libertarians)
• Barbara Bush: "I hope she'll stay there [Alaska]."
• Glenn Beck: “Sarah Palin, I don’t think, wants to run for president.”
Vapid, etc.
Comparisons to Al Sharpton:
• Matt Labash, of the Weekly Standard, said that because of Palin’s frequent appeals to victimhood and group grievance, “She’s becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition.” due to her "appeals to victimhood and group grievance." (h.t John Amato)
• George Will (a William F. Buckley wannabe, look out Bill Kristol):
“There’s no Reagan without Goldwater, no Goldwater without National Review and no National Review without Buckley — and the contrast between he and Ms. Palin is obvious.”
Let me translate that -- he thinks she is the anti-Buckley.
• Not to be left behind on that score, Bill Kristol: ... feels Palin is "unlikely to be the Republican nominee, and to be honest I think she probably shouldn't be the Republican nominee for president."
• Peter Wehner, former advisor for GWB: “She seems at best disinterested in ideas or lacks the ability to articulate any philosophical justification for them. She relies instead on shallow talking points.”
• Santorum (who just declared today):
And now for the implied threats against her.
Just as there is a soft-sell, there is a hard-sell. Some of the dirt on Palin includes the unsettled rumors about her son (or possibly grandson) Trig.
• Business Insider: "PROFESSOR: Sarah Palin Probably Staged A Gigantic Hoax About Being Trig's Mother"
• The Professor's article: "Palin, the Press, and the Fake Pregnancy Rumor"
(note, he is a Professor at Northern Kentucky University. Is there a connection to Rand Paul? Mitch McConnell? I don't know.)
• Laura Novak's blog: Sarah Palin and the Professor – A Conversation
So how do they not make this be in the same category as the rumors of Obama being born somewhere other than Hawaii? Actually, the Anchorage Daily News, post 2008 election, was trying to debunk it (frankly, I thought it was debunked long ago), and was unable to do so -- they were stonewalled at every turn by Palin's people.
Personally, I truly don't care. But the coverup is worse than the crime. In the world of political dirty tricks, merely making something LOOK like a coverup can be damaging.
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So where is this coming from?
Politico features highly in the links that carry this story. I think this is a ploy by the Republican Establishment (e.g. NOT the Tea Party) to get her to stand down.
But I also think that they're afraid to victimize her too much, as Santorum found out, she'll get on Fox with her enablers and strike back.
Business Insider is also involved (Henry Blodget). This is bludgeon approach, so the one hand (Politico) uses the soft-sell, and the other holds the hammer.
So, of the three strategies (Smoke, denegration in public, and outright threats), I think should she decide to bow out, the excuse will be the former. The actual reason? Who knows or cares.
The only ones with the motive to keep her from running (short of the individual candidates themselves) are the players behind the scenes of the Republican Party. Ordinarily I'd assume that to be Karl Rove (because it's fun), but it doesn't really matter. Those with the most to gain by her staying on Reality TV and not running for President would undoubtedly be within the Republican brain trust.
As we all waited for the Goreacle (waiting for Gore.dot) in 2007, some estimates were made about how late he could declare and still have a viable candidacy. For Palin that seems to be November/December 2011 at the latest. She has until then to milk the news, reality shows, and speaking circuits prior to making a decision and IMHO she will wait that long. But clearly the Republican Establishment doesn't want her to run, and wants her to decide sooner instead of later.