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.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in