She could have either stayed quiet on the matter outright, or simply said that he was an honorable man (or another complimentary phrase) and that she would support him in the general election if he won the primary.
Instead, she went much much farther than that and basically promised to support him in the primary, despite all the recent rumblings about Hayworth looking into declaring his candidacy for McCain's seat.
McCain isn’t just another Senator to Palin. He turner her into a national star by picking her as his running mate. Do you REALLY expect Palin to not help out McCain now?