I'll go one further into the mindset of McCain at the time. McCain, by choosing Palin as his VP, was to mitigate the court challenges by the Democrats who would have surely challenged him if he became president. This was McCain's tacit answer to the Dems. If you remove me from office over the natural born citizen clause, you'll get Palin as the president.
The constitution was written by honorable men for honorable men. So if your premise is to be considered we had no honorable men nominated for the office.