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[Brittain33]

It sounds like the main obstacle to replacing Palin, assuming McCain does a cost-benefit analysis about the damage done by dumping her vs. soldiering on with a risky VP, is in the lost support of the conservatives who were brought back to McCain by Palin. He'd need to replace her with someone with the same appeal to social conservatives who could also be acceptable to the general electorate, if not a game changer or someone who'd win over moderates.

Is there someone out there like that? A strong social conservative who might not have been considered before for various reasons, but who would do the job? I assume there are no women who fit the bill, and that would look like doubling down on tokenism if he did.

Alternatively, is there an eminence grise who would command enough respect to make this work?

[Brittain33]

brittain33, if McCain replaced Palin, he'd have no chance.  The social conservatives are a problem, but not the biggest one in your analysis.

Ok. I am considering that McCain might think his chances were worse with Palin than taking the hit and moving on, but everyone's insisting that replacing her means total failure for the campaign, and so it moves the discussion into vulture territory and that's not what I'm trying to do.