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Sarah Palin is making clear she's no fan of Politico – the news organization that published a story Sunday night quoting anonymous Republican sources saying GOP leaders will try to forestall a Palin White House bid.

"Politico, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, they're jokes," Palin told Fox News on Sunday night, referring to the writers of the story. "This is a joke to have unnamed sources tearing somebody apart limb by limb."

"If they would man up and if they would, you know, make these claims against me then I can debate them, I can talk about it, but to me they're making stuff up again," the former Alaska governor continued.

The comments came shortly after the website published a story by Allen and VandeHei that claimed establishment Republicans are deeply fretting the possibility of a Palin presidential campaign and will work behind the scenes to ensure it does not occur.

"I don't think the paper that we just printed this article on, you know, it's not worth even wrapping my King Salmon in," Palin also said of Politco. "I'll just ignore this crap."

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Even so, top Republicans fear the dynamic that played out in many of this year’s intraparty Senate contests — especially in comparatively small states like Nevada, Alaska, Utah and Delaware, where tea party activists helped topple establishment favorites — could easily be repeated in early-state presidential caucuses and primaries. In many cases, the tea party activists cared more about ideological affinity than perceived electability in the general election. (See: 10 tea party candidates to watch)

"If she runs, she runs right at the establishment," said a top adviser to a rival campaign. As witnessed in recent weeks, she would have powerful backup — at least at the outset of a campaign — among conservative media figures, especially Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. She would also face a mainstream media eager and ready to play up her every move, word and tweet.


The establishment-vs.-activists narrative is hardly novel in presidential primaries. What's different this time is that the anti-establishment candidate — Palin — would enter with unmatched celebrity and media advantages, at a time when the establishment is weaker than it’s been in many years.

Limbaugh did not respond directly to an e-mail request for comment, but he did mention the inquiry about establishment antipathy to Palin on his radio show. “It could also be they're scared to death that [if] Palin wins, it's the end of them — the Republican establishment,” Limbaugh said.

He also questioned the timing of media speculation about her impact. “What's the point of running a story like that right now if not, then, to sow dissension in the ranks?”

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Top Republicans in Washington and in the national GOP establishment say the 2010 campaign highlighted an urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over: Stop Sarah Palin.

Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s midterm campaigns.

There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the Republican nomination, a prospect many of them regard as a disaster in waiting.

Many of these establishment figures argue in not-for-attribution comments that Palin’s nomination would ensure President Barack Obama’s reelection, as the deficiencies that marked her 2008 debut as a vice presidential nominee — an intensely polarizing political style and often halting and superficial answers when pressed on policy — have shown little sign of abating in the past two years.

"There is a determined, focused establishment effort … to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin," said one prominent and longtime Washington Republican. "We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her."

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Before voters head to the polls to decide the 2010 midterm election, many people in Washington have already turned their focus to the presidential election in 2012.

Some Republicans in Washington have a clear goal in mind; preventing Sarah Palin from winning the GOP nomination, Politico reported today.

The website's Andy Barr, who spoke with ABC News' John Berman today in the Conversation, cited two reasons for such a goal.

"A lot of these guys don't want Palin as the nominee because they fear that if she is the nominee, that means doom for them in 2012," Barr said.

And "a lot of these guys are going to be working for other candidates," he added, noting that the Value Voters Straw Poll had 20 Republican candidates.

Palin hasn't shied away from declaring her presidential ambitions. She has said that she's willing to run if it's right for the country and right for her family, and she has been raising money through her political action committee.

Many analysts see Palin as the real frontrunner for the 2012 Republican nomination but, Barr said, the Republican establishment is firmly against her.

"A lot of the Republicans in D.C. right now who are orchestrating these big wins are immediately going to turn to try and kneecap her because they recognize that this kind of conservative groundswell that follows her and loves her is something that they can't control and could be very detrimental to their candidates," Barr said.

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Razib Khan thinks GOP elites gunning for Palin need to tread carefully because "Sarah Palin’s intensity of following may be inversely correlated with the the nakedness of antipathy toward her from elites":

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Republican elites have been waiting for Palin to fumble to the point where she loses much of her core support. But this seems a case where the more she “fumbles” the more her core followers are reinforced in the righteousness of adhering to her cause, as she shows her humanity. On the other hand a Sarah Palin run for the highest office is probably one of the best ways for Democrats to guarantee massive turnout among their base in 2012.

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This is the genius. If her campaign is simply the O'Donnell one - "I'm You" - then how does an elite hurt her without actually helping her? Even if someone found out some amazing new fact about her - the story would not be the fact, but that the liberal elitist media was out to get her. That's what happens when you have a paranoid personality cult dominating a political party.

I saw this early on when I dared to ask questions about the Trig story. Heads she wins; tails you lose. And so any actual investigation never happens, and you have pure reality television politics. The more Palin says "crap" on Fox, the wackier her Discovery Channel escapades, the sleazier Bristol's dance routines ... the more Karl Rove worries and her base rallies to her as "one of them". The worse Snooki behaves, the more famous she is, the more people decry her ... the bigger her audience.

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