I despise McCain, but in a race against Obama...tough choice.
It may come down to how our chances in Congress look.
That's where 100% of our focus should be. McCain is a losing candidate for the general election, whatever he does to gain one conservative vote, he loses two mushy middle votes over.
I'm certainly not going to spend one precious dollar on McCain, and I won't waste a half puff of my breath trying to tell friends, family members, and co-workers to vote for him. I'd rather treat Obama or Hillary as a fait accompli, and strongly suggest that the best part of the Clinton administration was when he was balanced by a Congress from the other party. Surely, there is enough natural distrust of Hillary out there to make this plausible, even to leftward-leaning people who despise McCain. There may well be enough of a squirm factor on Obama to get people to make sure there are grown-ups in Congress for him to work with, and besides, he's promising to work with everybody in government without animosity, isn't he?
Since Congress has an especially low rating, a "throw out all incumbents" movement would be particularly fruitful this fall. Since Rats hold a majority of the seats in Congress, they'd predominantly be the ones swept out. Of course, in very conservative districts that send non-RINO Republicans to Congress, fear of Obama would make sure they kept that representative in place.
The strategies of "Keep Hillary honest, vote for a Republican Congress," or "Give Obama a new Congress to work with, we need fresh air in both elected parts of government," are the only way to begin rebuilding our party from the disaster it finds itself in presently.