Sarah Palin was not chosen as a decoy to distract the media, or a decoy to deflect shots at McCain (although both are bonuses for the old man). Sarah Palin is a decoy in the propagandist's, the social psychologist's and the marketer's sense of the word.
In the battle of contrasts, McCain was clearly behind. Any contrast made, be it on issues, age, ideals, momentum, appeal - even if the contrast was made by McCain himself - it only served to make John McCain look more like Bush. There was only one contrast where McCain had an edge: experience. But it wasn't resonating strongly enough with the swing voters to overshadow all the others.
The McCain Camp's Solution: Introduce Sarah Palin as a pseudo-alternative Decoy, inferior to the other candidates, to contrast John McCain's experience over Barack Obama.
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