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A couple of weeks ago, in a post about how the McCain campaign was sequestering Sarah Palin from the media, I wondered, “Is there a point at which she will finally chafe at the treatment she is getting from the campaign?

She’s chafin’.

The New York Times today:

COLORADO SPRINGS — These days, Gov. Sarah Palin seems like a candidate trying to wriggle free of her handlers.

On Sunday night, she twice took questions from reporters, the first time on an airport tarmac without her press staff’s knowledge.

After landing in Colorado Springs late Sunday, Ms. Palin marched over to a local television crew and began answering questions on camera, sending the traveling press corps sprinting in pursuit, and her press staff scrambling.

“Get Tracey,” one campaign aide barked into his headset, calling for Tracey Schmitt, Ms. Palin’s ever-watchful spokeswoman, who rushed over to supervise the impromptu news conference. (Ms. Schmitt, looking distressed, tried several times to cut it off with a terse “Thank you!” in between questions, to no avail.)

I think something interesting is happening here, that will perhaps have a bearing on whether the McCain campaign can pull significantly closer to Obama in these last two weeks of the campaign. I think that Sarah Palin considers her running mate to be a loser, and that if she were at the top of the ticket (and making the decisions), she’d be winning.

In my previous post on this subject, I noted that Palin was upset that the McCain campaign decided to pull out of Michigan. Yesterday I noticed this (also quoted in the New York Times article):

On Sunday night, she criticized the Republican National Committee’s use of robocalls.

“If I called all the shots, and if I could wave a magic wand,” Ms. Palin said, “I would be sitting at a kitchen table with more and more Americans, talking to them about our plan to get the economy back on track and winning the war, and not having to rely on the old conventional ways of campaigning that includes those robocalls, and includes spending so much money on the television ads that, I think, is kind of draining out there in terms of Americans’ attention span.”

“If I called all the shots…”

I think Palin’s frustrated that her big debut is being stepped on by the wrinkly old white-haired dude and his ineffectual group of cronies. She considers herself the star — and why wouldn’t she? There have been widespread reports of people leaving McCain/ Palin events when she’s done and the supposed headliner takes the mic. I think she has abundant self-regard and is pleased but isn’t particularly surprised at the adoration she receives at rallies.

Yet the wrinkly old white-haired dude and his cronies tell her to keep reading from the teleprompter with maximum spirit (“we’ve got spirit, yes we do!”) and otherwise stay in the background while they take care of the real business of winning an election.

If that possibility seems less and less likely — if Palin sees her chance of becoming vice president fade — will she become more of a free agent? Break free from her handlers in ways large and small, and try to further her own career — even if that means doing direct damage to John McCain’s chances in these last two weeks before election day?