Alaska News

McCain: Tax returns didn't DQ Romney, Palin was just 'better candidate'

Mitt Romney's tax returns have become a hot topic of speculation among political news junkies. Romney critics in and out of his party wonder what he's hiding.

According to Politico, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is in position to know a great deal about Romney's tax returns, for during the vice-presidential candidates' vetting process in 2008, McCain and his team examined 20 years worth of Romney's tax returns.

When asked whether McCain and his selection team saw something unseemly in all that paperwork that caused them to pass on Romney for VP, he said no.

"Of course not," McCain said. "I don't know what depths these people won't reach. Obviously, it's just outrageous. That's just outrageous. It shows the – it's so disgraceful for them to allege something that they have absolutely no knowledge of."

When asked why his team chose Palin over Romney in 2008, McCain responded, "Oh come on, because we thought that Sarah Palin was the better candidate. Why did we not take [Tim] Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people. Why didn't I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others. ... Come on, why? That's a stupid question."

Read much more, here, including an explanation from Steve Schmidt, who served as the top adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, and since then has shown himself to be no Palin fan.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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