There is a rumble in the socon asylum that arch-RINO Mitt Romney actually torpedoed both Palin and, so help me, the Carolina alley-cat Mark Sanford. Apparently the denizens of the fever swamp had viewed creationist Sanford as potential presidential material after Bobby Jindal decided to self-destruct.
Obviously, fiendish liberal conspirators would have wanted to wait and spring the pseudo-Evita on Sanford AFTER he got the nomination, but the wily Mitt pre-empted them.
Just exactly how these various conspirators arranged all this remains a complete mystery.