I voted for McCain for two reasons:
1.) Palin was on the ticket
2.) There was no other choice except to not vote.
A CBS poll in May of 2004 had a potential Kerry McCain ticket up by 14 or more points over the chicken hawk Cheney and the AWOL National Guardsman Bush during wartime.
McCain was promised Bush White House assistance if he would stall his presidential aspirations until 2008 and decline to run with Kerry against Bush.
Steve Schmidt ran the “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” against Kerry, under Karl Rove’s auspices to victory in 04, but only after the famous McCain-Bush “make up hug” at some rally that summer. A deal was struck for 08 for McCain.
This is why the first person McCain called hours after the ‘06 midterms, was Steve Schmidt; and Schmidt of course ran McCain's campaign, and then this same Steve Schmidt, (who by then had drafted another Bushie to “handle” Palin, Nicole Wallace, former Bush official and former Jeb Bush spokesperson) submarined Sarah Palin because she was and is a true conservative Christian and an anti-Uniparty patriot.
The Bush White House reneged on their deal with McCain because of Sarah Palin; once she was on the ticket, McCain and Palin were beating the pants off Obama, and elites cannot afford to have an actual Christian in executive power.