Despite the campaign's insistence that Cindy McCain was earnest, observers point out that as campaigns go, 2008 is not nearly as dirty as they come.
"This is just typical campaign hyperbole," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
"We hear it every four years. American politics has always been dirty, and this is typical of the kind of talk you hear every four years. Poor Thomas Jefferson endured it 1800, and in 1828 Andrew Jackson had to contend with the opposition raising questions about the possibility that his wife was still married to another man at the time of their wedding," he said. "Of anybody out there, Cindy McCain knows what a dirty campaign looks like. South Carolina in 2000 was a real dirty campaign."
Sabato said candidates and their surrogates are often under stress and say things they might not really mean.
"Sometimes they get into the moment and don't have perspective because of all the stress. No campaign is completely clean, but I wouldn't call this particularly dirty."
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