Spinning The Cocoon Tighter

I'm watching an election retrospective with what appear to be some midlevel McCain campaign staffers, and none of them are willing to say on the record that Sarah Palin was a bad pick. They will say they failed to define her as enough of a moderate, they will say firing up the base was important, they will say it was effective initially but its effect seemed to subside over time, but they will not say it was a mistake. Do their careers really depend on believing this? Or is the continuing effort of to create their own reality?