On Sunday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Republican Sen. John McCain had a few explanations for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s struggles to get to the finish line of the GOP presidential nominating process. But a key reason, he said, was the role of super PACs in the process.
McCain explained to “Meet the Press” host David Gregory that messaging and the way delegates were allocated were two reasons behind Romney’s difficulties. But super PACs, he maintained, were driving up negatives among all the candidates.
“Well, I think there are several reasons, and obviously, Mitt Romney will tell you, first of all, he has to do a better job,” McCain said. “He’s working on doing a better job. He’s got to focus more on the economy. He’s been giving major speeches on the economy and jobs. And I think he is improving dramatically as a candidate. But, also, the proportional distribution of the delegates. Any campaign before, we had — we had winner take all. If it was winner take all, you would have seen those numbers significantly different. Also, the super PACs have played a key role, unfortunately, in my view, because most of them are negative ads. They drive up unfavorables of all the candidates and made it much more difficult frankly to win the election in November.”
McCain, who has claimed to be the victim of some nasty campaign attacks in the past, proclaimed this one “the nastiest”campaigns he has ever seen. However, he named the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision as the culprit and warned of the consequences forthcoming.
“This is the nastiest I have ever seen and again, when you have a Las Vegas casino mogul, by the way, who gets part of his money from a Macau, pouring $20 million into one campaign, and most of those are negative ads, obviously, that drives up people’s unfavorable,” McCain said. “So, it’s — it’s the result of the worst decision the United States Supreme Court has made in many years, the Citizens United decision, where out of naivety and sheer ignorance, the majority of the Supreme Court just unloosened all — released all money now. There will be scandals, David. There will be scandals, and maybe we’ll reform again.”