By which I presume that Sarah Palin thinks someone else may be the Tim Tebow of Iowa.  William Jacobson calls this a “political coup de grace,” and perhaps just a wee bit of payback:

“As for Michelle Bachmann. She has a lot to offer, also, but I don’t think it is her time this go around. And I believe that unless she, too, wants to spend her own money or borrowing money and perhaps go into debt. Which heaven forbid, you do that to your family? Perhaps she is one, too, who would start saying ‘supporters of mine, why don’t we coalesce around one of the other candidates and let’s move together as a team to get that right primary candidate chosen?’

William gives a brief review of the personal history between Bachmann and Palin that he thinks might be coloring (and vindicating) Palin’s analysis, but this sounds like good, common political sense more than payback.  Bachmann gave this a good run, but a last-place finish in Iowa among active competitors — if that’s what happens tonight — leaves very little reason for Republicans elsewhere to back her candidacy.  Social conservatives and foreign-policy hawks can move to either Rick Santorum or Rick Perry; the former is probably closer to Bachmann on the issues, while the latter is better organized and has a better resume.  Her Midwestern appeal as a contrast to the other two options would be minimal in places like South Carolina and Florida, and Romney will almost certainly own Michigan.

Bachmann insists that she will persevere into South Carolina, but you won’t hear a candidate acknowledge defeat until it arrives.  Unless a Tebow-like miracle arrives tonight, I’d expect Bachmann to start looking at her options in holding her seat in the House after the redistricting adjustments here in Minnesota, and the opportunity to play kingmaker.

Palin also lays into Jon Huntsman for skipping Iowa altogether, calling it “offensive” to Republicans everywhere.  The decision to ignore Iowa and concentrate on Mitt Romney’s backyard in New Hampshire is less offensive than it is puzzling, but Huntsman won’t drop out this week because of a bad result in Iowa.  He’ll drop out next week after getting clobbered in New Hampshire, without any other path to the nomination.

Update: Made a minor grammatical change to the headline, after reading it a number of times and thinking the original “think about” construction made it awkward.

Update II: John Ziegler wonders why Palin’s asking Bachmann to get out while defending Donald Trump.