How To Know When You're Over:

It's one thing when political sites talk about you being done, but it's another thing entirely when, say, Fortune Magazine openly wonders about your future career prospects being bought and sold on InTrade.

Now the Democrats aren't the only ones who can try to capitalize on the negative buzz growing around Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the prospective Republican VP candidate.

Intrade, an online prediction market based in Dublin, created a contract Tuesday morning on the likelihood that John McCain will drop Palin as his running mate. After opening at a probability of just 3%, the odds on Palin being cut from the ticket climbed to 18% around 9 a.m. and have since settled at around 12%.

Intrade is a place for betting enthusiasts to turn a small profit on everything from the latest auction of works by controversial British artist Damien Hirst to Britney Spears' chances of landing in rehab. Contracts on a possible future event are bought and sold by users of the site, like a stock on the NYSE.

Chad Rigetti, Intrade's VP of Business Development, says traders on the site asked Intrade to create the newest market after stories about Palin, including her teenage daughter's pregnancy and her involvement in a group that did corporate fundraising for controversial Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, flooded the news. The pool has been open for less than twelve hours, but has already attracted more than 950 trades. Intrade estimates that about $2300 has been traded on the Palin withdrawal contract.

Placing a Palin withdrawal at even 12% seems bullish; no presidential candidate has withdrawn his VP selection since Thomas Eagleton left Democratic candidate George McGovern's ticket in 1972.

Intrade has demonstrated some success in predicting political choices (forecasting the selection of Biden), but also volatility: Palin's chances of landing the nomination vacillated wildly in the hours before McCain announced the pick.

Rigetti points out that while some traders are putting Palin on the chopping block, they're still giving her 97% odds in a separate market for the VP nomination. He thinks that many traders are playing both markets, which means they believe a withdrawal won't come until later in the election season.

Intrade monitors its traders' demographics, but it's too early to tell who's betting on a Palin pullout. Some of the naysayers could be Republicans: Rigetti says that, unlike polls, the election markets don't always represent political beliefs. "People have a real money incentive," he says. "They're betting with their head and not their heart."

Now that's the free market at work, and considering the wacky stuff that keeps gettng dug up about the woman, those odds keep going up. Me, I like her...since her announcement Obama's gained 8 points on McSame. She's great...for Obama.

P.S. She cut $1.1 million out of Alaska's state budget in a line item veto that slashed funding for troubled kids...and teenage mothers.

As Michael Keaton said in Beetlejuice, "and it keeps getting funnier every time I see it!"