John McCain regrets picking conservative firebrand Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election over Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman, the Republican senator writes in his forthcoming memoir.
McCain recalls in “The Restless Wave” that his advisers told him picking Lieberman would hurt his chances of being elected to the White House because he supported abortion rights and was close with Democrats.
“It was sound advice that I could reason for myself,” he writes, according to the New York Times. “But my gut told me to ignore it and I wish I had.”
Along with his book, McCain also participated in an HBO documentary that’s set to be released later this month. In the documentary, McCain calls his decision not to pick Lieberman, one of his closest friends, “another mistake that I made [in my political career.]”
Lieberman told the New York Times that he hadn’t been aware of McCain’s regret until he saw the film.
“It touched me greatly,” he said.
