On the one hand - I find that hard to believe... But on the other hand - the McCain campaign sure seemed like it was designed not to offend.
This seems like a guaranteed recipe for defeat - because you are going to 'offend' if you stake out a position and are willing to fight (fairly and righteously) for the job...
I attributed this to the McCain plan of appealing to the 'squishy undecided' camp - but the net result was that his campaign didn't act like it wanted to win.
To be partially fair, the Republican candidates are always going to battle under the disadvantage that they fight not only against the Democrat candidate, but also against the media and their distortions. Any 'aggressive campaigning' by Republicans will always be reported as 'going negative'. Whereas 'aggressive campaigning' by Democrats will either be ignored, or called 'aggressive campaigning'. Perhaps Senator McCain tried to steer away from 'aggressive campaigning' to avoid getting slimed by the media. Not that this helped him a wit...
Next time just come out firing and understand the media is going to call you names. They are going to do that anyways - so you might as well bring all your weapons to the battle.
I think that's why most of us on FR liked Sarah so much....we really don't care if we piss off the press and the Dems. As a matter of fact, the more pissed they are - the better we like it.
What can you say about a candidate who repudiates his allies and lavishes a character endorsement on his opponent?