Answer: Karl Rove, operating at long distance using a lazy butler and two intermediary cut-outs. Karl does like to tie people up to take them out of the mix -- without their knowledge, preferably, but the fingerprints are usually there.
In 2000, Rove wanted to get Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition out of the way, because Rove was engineering a "reconciliation" between the GOP and tons of homosexual-lobby money (Log Cabins, other gays). So he arranged for oil/energy mogul (and future federal prisoner) Ken Lay to hire Reed as a political consultant/lobbyist at a lordly salary, and then bury him in a thorny power-development project in eastern Tennessee. That tied up Reed all through the political season -- he hasn't been heard from since. And this was a guy who once was a magazine cover at the height of his influence.
Karl Rove likes to divert the career trajectories of people he wants to disappear from Republican politics.
Sarah escaped the toils of the RatRoots and Ankle-Biters by leaving the governorship of Alaska, which had unusually powerful accountability laws that would have tied her up indefinitely and impoverished her.
Now she has to escape from her contract with Fox .... which, notice, expires in 2013. Don't expect that they'll offer her another contract. They only did this as a favor to Rove in the first place. The raison d'etre of her job is about dead already.
And yes, I wish things had turned out much differently.
if she's serious, she needs to hope that Romney wins and appoints her energy secretary, and she can help develop new oil drilling in Alaska, which would make her a rock star with the people....
then, go for Senator of Alaska and have a nice long career....
she's a valuable asset as far as cohesing tea partiers and other conservatives...