After Palin's dramatic dive in the polls over these last few weeks, McCain staffers are lamenting their decision to not proceed with their first VP choice, Big Bird.

"Big Bird was our number one pick for quite some time," a McCain advisor admitted yesterday, while shaking his head in regret. "But when Obama threw us that curveball by passing over Hillary, we knew we needed a woman in the VP seat, so at the 11th hour we were forced to shift our focus away from the better qualified, giant, yellow candidate."

After meeting with Big Bird several months ago, McCain staffers were quite impressed. "Big Bird's knowledge of foreign affairs and firm grasp of the economy far exceeded that of Palin. In all honesty, the fact that he's a giant bird puppet gave some of us cold feet," one staffer admitted, "an issue that in hindsight would have been a mere speed bump compared to irreversible damage Palin has brought to the campaign."

Advisers went on the explain that Big Bird's experience on PBS for almost forty years also put him in a unique position with regards to education reform, an area in which Palin, once again, is greatly lacking.

Big Bird had a lot going for him as a candidate beyond his sunny, 8'2" exterior. His close ties to Sesame Street's low-to-middle class neighborhood, alone, would have provided the McCain ticket some much needed appeal with the elusive blue-collar base. "This is something we regretfully chose to forgo when we went with Palin," one staffer admitted. "That and also a freaking brain," he added.

On paper, McCain advisers said they assumed Palin would be able to express herself more articulately then the avian puppet. "Palin proved us wrong in this respect as well," one staffer explained, "Big Bird's clear, articulate train of logic on all issues, whether it be the alphabet or healthcare, would have been a welcome departure from Palin's disjointed, uninformed gibberish."

In the end, the real deal breaker with regards to Big Bird was what staffers referred to as, "The Snuffleupagus Effect." A fear that the press would have had a field day with Big Bird's highly-publicized visions of his imaginary friend. A friend that literally no one else has seen since Big Bird's first mention of him back in 1971.

As talks got more serious with Big Bird back in July, the McCain camp implored him to drop the Snuffleupagus issue, to which he woefully responded, "But I'm telling you, he was just here a second ago! I swear!!"

"Again, in retrospect, we could have spun an imaginary woolly mammoth a hell of a lot easier than Palin's 'keeping an eye on Russia from her porch' crap," said a lead McCain staffer. "A hell of a lot easier."

At the conclusion of our chat with the McCain camp, we left several staffers staring mournfully at the picture of an apparent third candidate, one whom they also regretfully passed up for Palin. The saucy, multi-talented Brazilian entertainer, Charo.