Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) assertion that Democratic rival Barack Obama would rather “lose a war” than lose his campaign has drawn an angry response from the Illinois senator’s campaign.

In an internal memo containing talking points for surrogates, the Obama campaign says “these kinds of petty, personal accusations are beneath Sen. McCain.”

The talking points, obtained by The Hill, continued: “They ignore the seriousness of the debate that the American people want to have in this election.

“It’s hard to see how leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that is taking responsibility for its future while we finish the fight in Afghanistan is ‘losing,’ ” the memo reads.

Time magazine reported that McCain, speaking in Rochester, N.H., said he “had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war,” adding: “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”