You can go back farther than that to the 2000 GOP primary McCain was savaged by a smear campaign in South Carolina where Rove and Co questioned McCain's sanity and that he's likely mentally damaged from his years as a POW and thus you can't trust him as President. They also attacked his family, claiming that his adopted daughter from Bangladesh was in fact a love child of his. The Bush/Rove campaign against McCain got so ugly that it was what eventually caused him to really consider jumping to the Democratic party. He thought the party elders should have stepped in and he didn't want to be part of a party that would reward and allow those ridiculous lies and outright character assassination.

http://archives.record-eagle.com/2004/aug/081904.htm

McCain sees parallels in anti-Kerry attack ad

"Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, then an aide to President Ford

It's beginning to look like it'll be South Carolina 2000 all over again, as the race for the presidency heads into the final weeks.
Four years ago, when then-Gov. George W. Bush was fighting off a hard-charging John McCain for the Republican nomination, Bush supporters - some observers say with the tacit approval of the Bush campaign, if not Bush himself - launched a vicious campaign of rumor and hate mongering in the Deep South.
The slime was nonstop. It featured phone calls to likely GOP voters, parking-lot handouts and voter "polls," and whisper campaigns alleging that McCain was mentally unstable as a result of his years as a prisoner of war, that he was a "fag," that his wife was a drug addict and that the Arizona senator fathered a "black baby."
Unfortunately for McCain the sleaze worked. Bush pummeled McCain in South Carolina, effectively ending the senator's White House campaign and ensuring Bush's nomination.
Bush remained above the fray, denying any knowledge of character assassination done on his behalf and taking umbrage that McCain's advertising response had, in fact, besmirched him.
Now, Bush forces have done it again. They produced a one-minute television commercial accusing Kerry of lying about his decorated Vietnam war record.
McCain, one of America's most principled leaders, reacted forcefully. He said the attack ad was "the same kind of deal that was pulled on me." He called on the White House to disassociate itself from the "deplorable, "dishonest" and "dishonorable" campaign tactic. A Bush spokesman refused.
Then, reminiscent of the South Carolina sludge fest, Kerry supporters this week responded to the Bush ad by producing one of their own, questioning the president's record with the National Guard during the Vietnam era.
Again McCain reacted, calling on Kerry to denounce the anti-Bush ad. Kerry, in contrast to Bush in 2000 and again in 2004, did so.
"I agree with Senator McCain that the ad is inappropriate," Kerry said. "This should be a campaign of issues, not insults."
Interestingly, more moderate elements of the Republican Party may be showing signs of disenchantment with the president's night rider supporters.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Navy secretary during the Nixon administration, told an interviewer that "I think we best acknowledge that his (Kerry's) heroism did gain that (Silver Star) recognition."
Hopefully, the voices of moderation - and of principle - will prevail in the coming days.

That heavy thud you hear is the 'sixteen tons' of MsCain's pledges to run an honorable campaign.

Yes, it's true - he indeed has 'sold his soul to the company store'.

But one has to ask themself, will it make any difference that these nasty, outlandish and untruthful ads are coming from the candidate himself and not third parties? I mean, I am sure that people remember what happened to McCain and his reactions; will they look at this and think hmmm?