Secondly, McCain still got blown out in the election anyway. Spin it any way you like, but this thing was not at all close and the outcome was never in doubt as the results started coming in on Tuesday night.
Thirdly, any conservative who truly loves this country and cares about it's future would have voted for McCain anyway if it meant that doing so would prevent Lenin Obama from winning the White House. If people knew that the alternative to McCain was obama, and still couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain until he picked Palin as his veep, then I have to question their thinking.
McCain would have lost they way he did no matter who he picked because he was a disaster of a candidate. The only reason it wasn't even more of a blowout is because of who he was running against. In every presidential election the difference between victory and defeat rests largely in who the so-called 'independents' and 'undecideds' go for. This group is, by definition, by and large so completely ignorant and apathetic when it comes to politics that even knowing the names of the VP candidates is an accomplishment for them. This is the group that won the election for Obama. Palin didn't matter nearly as much as many here would like to believe.
This is not a knock against Palin by the way; no VP candidate ever means as much as they are built up to be.