McCain’s response was decisive: he pulled from television his negative advertisements, and announced to supporters, “If we don’t prevail, my friends, we know that we have taken the honorable way.” On the evening of the primary, McCain and his family watched the returns in a hotel suite in Charleston. It was at the height of the 2008 presidential election campaign, not long after Bush publicly endorsed John McCain as his successor. The messages warned, among other things, that Obama had tried to stop doctors from caring “for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions.” Meanwhile, McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, charged that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” Other surrogates claimed that Obama was “anti-American,” a “guy of the street” who “used cocaine,” and had “friends that bombed the Pentagon.” According to Newsweek, Michelle Obama asked an aide, “Why would they try to make people hate us?” 
 
 Early on, McCain vowed that he wanted “the most positive kind of campaign.” But even though he sometimes seemed uncomfortable, shifting in his chair or looking away from the camera, he was at the heart of those personal attacks—demanding that Obama confess his relationship to a “washed-up terrorist,” and proclaiming that Obama would “lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” 
 
 As the rallies of McCain and Palin grew angrier—at the mention of Obama’s name, supporters yelled “Traitor!,” “Kill him!,” and “Off with his head!”—McCain seemed startled by what he had helped unleash. He’s a decent family man.” Afterward, Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman from Illinois, who earlier had condemned the campaign’s inflammatory rhetoric, told me, “That’s the John McCain I know.” 
 
 Obama and his supporters decried McCain’s tactics.
– George Bush's stop-the-presses revelations just won't stop, though the latest comes by way of a dusty anecdote that's finally seeing the light of day. Alex Barker, writing for the Financial Times reveals that in an Oval Office meeting with Gordon Brown and other British dignitaries during the 2008 campaign season, John McCain came up in conversation. Bush reportedly told the group (according to two who were there): "I probably won’t even vote for the guy. I had to endorse him. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me." Barker recounts the "flash of astonishment" that befell the British crew, but says the alleged comments weren't "completely unexpected," considering the lack of love between Bush and McCain (he points to their dirty fight in the 2000 South Carolina primary).