Yeah, Caplan really outdid himself in constructing that ridiculous strawman in the opening paragraph.  Sure, Palin was awful but Caplan deconstructs McCain down to nothing more than his whiteness, age and (relatively minor) health concerns which related to melanoma, if I recall correctly.  Nothing was said about experience, qualifications, policy, or temperament for the office.  Not to mention that 43% of the "white" vote is actually pretty good as far as the Democrats are concerned as that's more or less the Republican base, all things being equal.  

And personally, for the record, I would have voted for Obama in 2008.  Not in 2012 though.  I was living in the U.S. at the time and remember vividly the economic turmoil and uncertainty the country was going through.  While I believe McCain was and still is an honourable, but flawed man, I saw him as out of his depth in 2008 when asked for a policy response to the oncoming recession and ill-suited, temperamentally, to deal with it.