Things took a nasty turn yesterday between Mitt Romney and John McCain in the battle for New Hampshire. Here's a quick tick-tock of the day's events:

- Things started yesterday morning when Mitt Romney released an ad attacking John McCain on taxes and immigration.

- McCain responded by going on Fox and Friends and declaring that Romney is in "a tailspin."

- A bit later the McCain campaign announced the launch of this ad highlighting editorials from the New Hampshire Union Leader and the Concord Monitor slamming Romney which the campaign declared was in response "to Mitt Romney's negative attack ad."

The Romney campaign cried foul. On his campaign bus in Iowa, Romney told reporters:

"We worked very hard to make sure it was accurate and honest and looks at contrasting issues. I begin the ad by indicating he's an honorable man. I believe he is, and a good person. I make no attacks on his character. I make no attacks of a personal nature whatsoever.

"I've just seen the text of his ad," Romney added. "It's obviously of a very different nature. It's an attack ad. It attacks me personally. It's nasty. It's mean-spirited. Frankly, it tells you more about Senator McCain than it does about me - that he'd run an ad like that."

Shortly thereafter the Romney campaign blasted out the following statement, along with a link to a commercial McCain ran against George W. Bush in 2000, suggesting that McCain has a history of attacking his rivals:

"Senator McCain has a troubling history of neglecting substantive issues and getting personal in his attacks against those who happen to disagree with him. It's the McCain way.

We just happen to believe that Senator McCain's position on amnesty for illegal immigrants and his votes against President Bush's tax relief are the wrong policies for the Republican Party. We just simply disagree with him."

Last night the McCain campaign fired back with this statement:

"If voters didn't already know Mitt Romney, his crocodile tears might have been convincing. He's spent $20 million of his own money serially misrepresenting his positions and those of every other candidate. We just decided to share New Hampshire newspapers' assessment of him."

Finally, despite Romney's claims about the veracity of his ad with respect to McCain's record on taxes and immigration, Marc Santora of the New York Times wrote that, "On both topics, the commercial presents facts that could be construed either as selective or worse, misleading."

And in the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz came to the same conclusion:

Mitt Romney, who targeted Mike Huckabee in an earlier commercial, is now running the most negative campaign of any presidential candidate in either party.

Romney's description of McCain's failed immigration bill -- which was backed by President Bush -- is so selective as to be misleading. [snip]

This New Hampshire ad, like the anti-Huckabee spot in Iowa, comes as Romney's poll numbers are declining in both states. Romney tries to cushion the blow in both ads by saying a few nice words about his opponents before assailing their records.

It's certain the war will continue for the next ten days, what's unclear is who is more hurt by this kind of back and forth.