The Hill News

Multiple media accounts citing sources close to Sarah Palin say that the former Alaska governor will not announce whether or not she is running for president at her hotly anticipated speech Saturday. Palin has previously said that she expects to make up her mind about running sometime in September, and her decision to hold a major speech this weekend in Iowa led many to speculate that she might be launching a campaign.

According to CNN, a source near Palin said she hopes to use the speech to deliver a strong critique of President Obama â€" and, indirectly, some of the leading Republican nominees.

"What she is going to address in this speech is the frustration that members of the Tea Party movement and ordinary Americans feel when they send politicians to Washington and nothing gets changed," the source sa! id. "There is a frustration that the status quo is always the status quo."

Palin insiders expect the former governor to strongly criticize the "permanent political class" of both parties â€" a group that could be read to include Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has rocketed to the front of Republican polls.

Palin's speech is also supposed to focus on the path she sees to economic recovery â€" and emphasize Tea Party bona fides on the economy. Palin has been highly critical of the president in the aftermath of this month's downgrade of the country's credit rating.

"Blaming the Tea Party for our credit downgrade is akin to Nero blaming the Christians for burning Rome," Palin wrote in a Facebook post on the subject. "Tea Party Americans weren’t the ones 'fiddling' while our country’s fiscal house was going up in smoke. In fact, we common-sense fiscal conservatives were the ones grabbing for the extinguishers while politically correct politicians! and their cronies buried their heads in what soon became this! bonfire ."

While Palin has dropped some hints about what else her speech might include, her camp had previously been noncommittal about whether the speech would include an announcement of her presidential plans. The speech almost didn't happen â€" The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Palin had backed out of the rally, before ultimately solving differences with Tea Party organizers and confirming her attendance.