I think that might have been part of it.
That was a very big part of why Sarah didn't run in 2012. When Perry threw his hat in the ring, you could almost hear Sarah gasp all the way from Alaska. It was a stunning betrayal on Perry's part, and I'm sure it sucked a tremendous amount of wind out of her sails. The field was already crowded, and with Perry getting into it, the atmosphere was practically circus-like.
There was no way she was going to run after that.
It's now clear that Sarah needed to announce her intentions early in the process to keep it from getting so far out of hand like it did. By holding out as long as she did, she left the gate open for way too many hopefuls to jam the stage. I believe there was a point in time in which the nomination was hers for the taking - had she only seized the moment. Whatever caused her to hesitate, allowed that moment to slip away.
I think you are substantially correct, and I think that, when all the books are written, that it will come out that a significant political disinformation and baiting campaign was mounted by the GOP-E to pull marginal actors into the primaries, to splash all the political money out of the shallowly-funded conservative end of the pool, so to speak. Remember all the Hunters and Huckabees and Cains and Giulianis circling the race?
I think that whoever whispered in Rick Perry's ear and changed his mind, was acting maliciously on a mental cripple. His recent surgery was as yet unhealed, and he was taking powerful drugs while in therapy.
I think those drugs produced some of his debate embarrassment, and that they induced his badly thought-out decision to run.
I thought it was interesting, too, that the Chicago Smear Machine was loaded up and waiting for Perry, when he did announce.