Did palin lose the election for mccain?

john mccain is a war hero, a maverick, and a kindly older man yet he surprisingly lost the election to the inexperienced yet idealistic young barack obama. personally i see very few things that Mccain did wrong while campaigning, besides forgetting how many houses he had. so when i look at mccains campaign i se only one flaw, and that would be governor of alaska sarah palin. say what you want but her inexperience and lack of basic political knowledge made her party the laughing stock of this election. however maybe i'm wrong , so i ask you my friends ,did senator john mccain lose his election bid due to a bad Vice presidential candidate choice? or is palin unfairly blamed for a campaign that wasn't quite what it should be in the first place?