In a Sunday interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain said his former running mate Sarah Palin had not asked for his advice on running for president, and that he didn’t know whether she was planning on entering the 2012 race, reports Roll Call.
Though he claimed he hadn’t spoken with Palin about a possible run, McCain did say he would “certainly put some credence to Karl Rove,” the former Bush adviser who predicted this weekend that Palin would enter the race near Labor Day, based on her schedule of upcoming appearances. But “she has not asked my advice, and I do not know” if she’ll run, McCain said. (Rove on Palin: ‘I think she gets in’)
But regardless of whether she enters the Republican field of candidates, McCain said he would “take a while” before supporting a candidate. “My sympathy is with all of you,” McCain, who also ran for the Republican nomination in 2000, said to all those vying for the White House. “I’m glad I’m not with you.”
McCain also explained a Senate floor speech he made in July in which he compared some Republican colleagues to hobbits. McCain was quoting a Wall Street Journal editorial that compared conservatives with “unrealistic” expectations to characters from “The Lord of the Rings.”
McCain was talking about conservatives’ insistence on a balanced budget amendment during the debt ceiling debate. “The Senate would not pass — would not get 67 votes … We could not have passed it. That was unrealistic, hobbits are unrealistic, it was unrealistic to say.”