Over the past few days I've been thinking about her behavior, and starting to wonder if anyone has any control over this woman.

Maybe some of you can give me some input on my thoughts so far...

Let's assume for this argument that McCain actually does want to tone things down (not too much of a stretch given how it's been working out for him).

Or to put it another way: If Palin is the Bulldog, what does McCain use as a leash?

Let's imagine for a moment that she wants to keep doing things the way she's doing them no matter what McCain wants. What kind of pressure could he put on her? They didn't have a personal relationship before he picked her.  He can't really make threats to her political career. She's a superstar in the religious right, where McCain holds no sway. She came from nowhere (Sorry Alaska), so worst case scenario, she goes back there and does her thing with slightly more notoriety. McCain has weak support from his own party (and it gets weaker every day), and it will be non-existent when he loses, so he can't hold the weight of the (leaderless) GOP over her head. The only thing he can really do is kick her off the campaign, which is equal to conceding the election.

Does any of this make any sense? Given what we know of Palin's political career so far, does anyone doubt that she would throw McCain under the bus if she felt like it?  The more it looks like they're going to lose, the less reason she has to play along.