The Mormon thing scares people off of Romney, but I can guarantee you if he'd been of a more mainstream religion that McCain would have had him as a running mate and fared better in the election.
I still believe Palin lost the neo Con vote for McCain and that's what sunk him. She was bad strategy to bring in the Bush crowd, the moral conservatives. She basically is Bush in a dress. She reminds me of him with the religious homilies, the winking and the folksy maladeptness with words.
She was Bush without the Bush name which has that 13T deficit smell on it now.