After pondering this morning, I'm inclined to say you're pretty darn right.
I always think of Palin's philosophy of "if I die politically, I die." And it seemed to me maybe she was taking the same tact with Newt: if I can keep it going and he lives, great; if he dies, he dies, and we'll all know he had his chance.
However, now I am starting to wonder if maybe this isn't the staging for her to enter the race if need be.
As I've posted in several (unfortunately) long posts on this thread, I don't see her analysis as having any potential for practical expression, and I think her premise is wrong, though appealing.
What's left is the appealing part. She's stirring up the you-and-me-against-the-world pot and, just maybe, waiting to see what happens.
If she sees the RiNO Establishment, with its serried ranks of Murkowskis and McCains and Bushes, successfully tigering down the Tea Party with money and backroom deals and brutal, bare-knuckle ad hom advertising against the Tea Party's standard-bearers (who right now appear to be Santorum and Gingrich), then I think she might conclude that there is nothing for her to lose, if the RNC crowd wins again, and throw herself on the pyre in an attempt to forefend such an outcome, by using her fading influence to help whoever can beat Willard.
There have been several indications -- Obama began his campaign this week by savaging Romney -- that Willard is the one the 'Ratscum really want, and have wanted, all along. That being so, his nomination simply must be prevented, and I'm sure she sees that.
I think she might indeed try to enter some of the primaries late, in order to try to prevent Willard from sewing up the nomination by "achieving inevitability". That would open the convention to a real fight on the floor, such as the GOP hasn't seen since 1952.