It is common for both sides to in a political campaign to go further in the heat of battle than they might if they took the time to reflect on their tactics. Marc Ambinder reviewed an advance copy of The Battle for America, a book on the 2008 election by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson and mentioned a few attacks which were regretted by both campaigns.
The major attack discussed is the McCarthyite charge that Obama “pals around with terrorists.” Contrary to earlier reports that Palin was going “rogue” in making the attack, probably motivated by a desire in the McCain campaign to distance themselves from such a dishonest attack, the book reports that the McCain fed the attack to Palin virtually word for word.
Ambinder mentioned a couple of other attacks which campaign operatives reported they regretted at a post-campaign discussion a few months ago. The McCain campaign regretted the decision to bring up Ayers along with an ad which gave false information on a sex-ed program backed by Obama.
The Obama campaign expressed regret about the ad which implied that McCain was too old or out of touch to use the internet.
