GOP Leaders: We've Got to Stop Palin

After tomorrow, Republican establishment leaders will shift their focus to another hurdle: making sure Sarah Palin doesn’t get the 2012 presidential nomination. In interviews with advisers to other presidential contenders, Politico found wide-ranging agreement that the former Alaska governor must be stopped. “There is a determined, focused establishment effort to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin,” said one.

The big problem: electability. “We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her,” added the establishment figure, who, like others, refused to be named. Though the “sentiment was a nearly constant refrain,” Politico notes, there’s currently no organized effort against Palin. One strategy: Bolster the RNC, which could serve as a “counterweight to some kind of guerrilla effort Palin might try to launch,” says one GOP leader, continuing, "You deter someone by creating stronger opposition." Click here for more.