John McCain Was Not The Only Recent Candidate Who Had Bad Experiences With Running Mate

Lacking the desire to actually look in detail at the issues, many journalists are concentrating on stories about Romney’s potential running mates. Reports often stress the importance of not repeating John McCain’s mistake in choosing Sarah Palin, but McCain was not the only recent presidential candidate who made a mistake in running mate The New York Times reports that John Kerry’s staff also has advice for Romney:

Ms. Myers has sought advice from previous presidential campaigns, including aides to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry’s 2004 race, who warned against picking a candidate with unchecked ambitions.

Kerry’s office also blasted Romney for claiming that Kerry only released two years of tax returns when he actually released returns for five years when running for president, with earlier returns released when running for the Senate:

“As Senator [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan once said, people are entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to their own facts,” said David Wade, Kerry’s chief of staff and the Democrat’s national spokesman during the presidential race eight years ago.

“The Romney campaign needs to stop getting their facts wrong about John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry,” Wade added, saying Kerry had put a total of 20 years of tax returns into the public domain by the time he ran for president.

John McCain denies recent speculation that he picked Sarah Palin over Mitt Romney after seeing Mitt Romney’s tax returns. Steve Schmidt says that Romney’s wealth but not tax returns were a factor in the decision:

“Sen. McCain got caught flat-footed answering a question about how many houses he owned. In fact, they were Cindy McCain’s properties but that distinction was lost in the political optics and we knew it would be a big liability that the presidential and the vice presidential candidates together owned more than a dozen homes. It was like something out of a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit. I mean, come on.”

 

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