In his first interview since conceding the presidential election, US Senator John McCain said Tuesday that running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin did not damage his presidential bid and he dismissed anonymous criticism aimed at her following their crushing defeat.
“I’m so proud of her and I’m very grateful she agreed to run with me. She inspired people, she still does,” McCain told US television host Jay Leno during a Tonight Show interview taped for broadcast on Tuesday night. “I couldn’t be happier with Sarah Palin.”
In an interview that mingled flashes of humor with political analysis, McCain did little to deflect responsibility from himself.
He alluded to the difficult political environment for Republicans nationwide and conceded: “I could tell you a lot of things that we may have made mistakes on.”
He never listed them.
“So, that’s the way it is,” he added.
Asked by Leno to address griping about Palin from unidentified McCain operatives in the days following the election, the Arizona senator said: “These things happen in campaigns. I think I have at least a thousand, quote, top advisers,” he scoffed. “A top adviser said? ... I’ve never even heard of ... a top adviser or a high-ranking Republican official.”
However, McCain never directly addressed the embarrassing controversy over Palin’s expensive campaign wardrobe purchased by the Republican National Committee, or statements by unidentified McCain aides who have reportedly said she was not prepared on foreign policy or other issues. The Alaska governor has said in interviews she did not ask for, or want, the US$150,000-plus wardrobe for her and her family.
McCain also disputed that a different vice presidential pick would have changed the outcome against Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And when asked if Palin drifted off the campaign’s message, he responded: “Did you expect mavericks to stay on message?”
At campaign rallies, “The people were very excited and inspired by her. That’s what really mattered, I think,” McCain said. “She’s a great reformer.”
McCain’s appearance at Leno’s Burbank studio was scheduled to coincide with Veterans Day and the audience was packed with serving members of the military. It was the former naval aviator’s 14th appearance on The Tonight Show, but his first TV interview as a vanquished presidential candidate.
While shielding Palin from blame, McCain also steered around a suggestion that skewed media coverage tilted the election toward Obama.
“One thing I think Americans don’t want is a sore loser,” he said.
“I knew I had a headwind. I can read the polls,” he said, in an obvious reference to a political climate soured by an economic crisis and unpopular Republican president and war.
The “party has a lot of work to do. We just got back from the woodshed,” he said.
On a day when McCain reflected on his loss, Palin talked about the future. In a series of national TV interviews, Palin attributed the ticket’s defeat to the troubled economy and Bush administration policies and indirectly put her name in play as a possible future presidential candidate.
What about another campaign for McCain, who will be 76 years old in 2012?
“I wouldn’t think so,” McCain told Leno, with a hint of resignation in his voice. “We are going to have another generation of leaders come along.”
McCain joked that he’d slept — and cried — “like a baby” since his defeat.
“I’ve been sleeping like a baby: sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours,” McCain said.
The Republican senator looked rested and was relaxed enough to make light of his defeat.
He pointed out that his home state of Arizona had now produced four failed White House candidates.
“Arizona may be the only state in America where mothers don’t tell their children that some day they can grow up and be president,” he quipped.
The first thing he and his wife Cindy had done on the day after losing, he said, was go out to buy a coffee.
But “not the newspaper.”
The failure had been “tough” on his family, McCain said, but he only wished Obama well.
“I salute ... president-elect Obama,” he said.
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