Sen. John McCain, who is suffering from an aggressive form of brain cancer, now says he wishes he hadn’t chosen former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign.
McCain writes in his new book, “The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and other Appreciations,” that he really wanted to pick Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat and former senator from Connecticut. The two had worked together on many bipartisan bills and have been longtime friends.
McCain, 81, a Republican who was dubbed a “maverick” by the media for his penchant to buck the party line, said his advisers told him not to select Lieberman, who in later years became an independent. They feared his support for abortion would put off staunch Republicans.
“It was sound advice that I could reason for myself,” he writes. “But my gut told me to ignore it and I wish I had.”
Lieberman told The New York Times that he never knew McCain felt that way. “It touched me greatly,” he said.
McCain, a bonafide war hero who was held as a prisoner of war by the Vietnamese for five years, is reportedly planning his own funeral. He has been at his home in Arizona for several months as he undergoes treatment for his cancer and recently had surgery to deal with an infection.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here,” she aid in an audio excerpt this week of his forthcoming memoir, aired by NPR.
After McCain picked Palin in 2008, the economy tanked and the GOP pair went on to get brushed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.