Daily Beast columnist Meghan McCain, daughter of former GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and a relative newcomer to the political punditocracy, has some unpleasant things to say about two of the top GOP presidential contenders.
On Tuesday’s “Imus in the Morning” on the Fox Business Network, McCain pledged her support to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and criticized both former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Texas governor Rick Perry.
“I’ve been on team Romney for a year and a half, two years,” McCain said. “I think he’s the most qualified and I’m sick of personalities. I don’t need a rock star president and I never did, and I don’t care about celebrity. I think he’s the smartest, most capable and knows the most about the economy and can hopefully do something to fix our recession.”
Romney’s competitors, though, didn’t fare so well — starting with Rick Perry’s campaign.
“I never bought into it,” she said. “I wrote a column and took a lot of heat for saying I thought he was basically completely unqualified — I think I was right then and right now.”
McCain says the Perry campaign isn’t a serious effort.
“He’s wasting everyone’s time,” she said. “It’s the same thing I think about Newt Gingrich: You’re wasting everybody’s time. This is obviously some kind of vanity project and I don’t think running for president should be a vanity project.”
Watch:
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Host Don Imus and McCain had a back-and-forth about Gingrich, which she argued he was irrelevant to her generation, despite Imus’ protestations that Gingrich’s past wasn’t something that should be dismissed:
IMUS: Well, Newt, Newt has the luxury of being really smart, I think. But so personally repulsive, and so much—
MCCAIN: I don’t like him.
IMUS: No, of course, who does? You go in and your wife is dying of cancer in the hospital and you’re presented with divorce papers. No, you’re a creep.
MCCAIN: Yeah, you’re, obviously
IMUS: And hounded poor ole Bill Clinton out of office over perjury I realize, but you’re having an affair at the same time?
MCCAIN: I mean, a little before my time, but yes.
IMUS: So was the French revolution, but you know about it, don’t you?
MCCAIN: I know.
IMUS: OK.
MCCAIN: I have been told to me before. That has been said to me before. I know about it. But, I just don’t care about Newt Gingrich. He’s so passé and I don’t agree with a lot of the things he says.
IMUS: But don’t say when somebody says to you, “That’s a little before my time.” Well, a lot of
MCCAIN: You’re like my father. Every time I come on it’s like being lectured by my father, literally. But I’m saying he is not relevant. Newt Gingrich is not pop-culturally relevant to my generation who I’m trying to get involved in politics. You see what I’m saying?
IMUS: He’s running for president. Hello?
MCCAIN: Yeah, but nobody cares. I know he’s running for president. The average person my age probably does not care about Newt Gingrich running for president, sorry.
