What? The "Republican Establishment" is poised to do Sarah Palin in?

There is a headline in the news, "Opinion: If Palin Enters the 2012 Contest, Christie Will Too." It was a little mind boggling, like a lot of headlines, so I read the article. It was written by Juan Williams, one of Sarah Palin's Fox News colleagues. The article begins:

What will it take to get Chris Christie to say yes and run for the GOP nomination?

Come on down -- Sarah Palin.

Aside from echoing Herman Cain's "come on down" idiom, it isn't until the article's last paragraph that Williams explains why (he thinks) Christie would get in, if Palin gets in:

All the talk about Palin has the Republican political establishment seeing red. They fear losing control of the nominating process and the whole party spiraling down, sinking into a sea of far-right polarization and the cult of personality around Palin if “Sarah Barracuda” – her nickname as star high school basketball player -- swims into their waters and begins eating up Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and the other current Republican candidates.

It isn't difficult to imagine Sarah Palin, who considers the Republican primary process to be a quasi-reality show, standing on a debate stage and asking, whenever one of the other candidates disagreed with her, "When did you stop beating your spouse?" So, yes, there may be some concern in the "Republican establishment" that she would turn the process into a circus.

But what is this "Republican establishment?" Who are its members? I can only think of Republican governors, members of congress, former high office holders, and a few pundits, like Karl Rove and, perhaps, Juan Williams. Collectively, they are incapable of preventing Sarah Palin from running. How could they force Chris Christie to run? Would Christie run, if Palin runs? He has said that he won't run.

Sarah Palin will ignore these establishment guys and run, if she wants to run. She might run to spite them, now that an enemy has been identified for her. I know: poles are for strippers, so she might also easily ignore polls that indicate that an overwhelming number of republican voters -- not establishment guys -- are concerned about their candidate's electability and are looking to nominate someone, anyone but Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin has done Sarah Palin in, so no one should blame her problems on the republican establishment. Of course, Sarah Palin may do just that. Her fans will be angry, if she announces that she won't run. But by blaming the establishment she could deflect their anger away from her and onto the establishment. Who knows? They might sit out the election!


Juan Williams wrote "Opinion: If Palin Enters the 2012 Contest, Christie Will Too."

Herman Cain says, "Come on down," in CBS News' "Herman Cain: My supporters "do not defect."

Sarah Palin called the republican primary process a quasi-reality show during an appearance on Fox Business News, an appearance in which she complained that her colleague, Juan Williams, had said something "nasty" about her. The Wall Street Journal's "Palin: Wait a While Longer" quotes Sarah Palin's quasi-reality show remark, which was made when she attempted to walkback her statement that Herman Cain is "flavor of the week." If I remember correctly, Sarah complains about Juan's "nasty" remark in Lawrence O'Donnell's "Sarah Palin is on thin ice" video, which can be viewed at "Requiem for a Wannabe Queen."


P.S. I'm off for the rest of today and tomorrow, unless Sarah makes an announcement.