Make no mistake, Hillary wants Obama to lose. If Obama wins, he will get the next nomination pretty much automatically as the incumbent president. That means her next opportunity to win the nomination would be 8 years from now when her political capital will have pretty much expired.
If Obama loses this election, you can be sure the blame right or wrong will fall on Hillary and people won't forget. But let's say McCain wins. What happens if she runs in 2012 and another person beats her out of the nomination? Hillary will never see the White House because by the time an opportunity comes around again, she'll be too old. She blew it, plain and simple.
Palin brings nothing to McCain's ticket. She announced that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Yup, that'll go over well with most women of this country. The only thing we might see is McCain grab himself a new wife now that Cindy is getting a little fragile.
He should have went with a real VP choice and not try to score short-term political points.
The one comforting thing about this election is that we won't see another Bush or Clinton in office no matter what for the next 4 years.