-By Philip Elliott (AP)
June 15, 2012- Sen. John McCain said in an interview posted online Friday that "foreign money" was helping fellow Republican Mitt Romney's presidential hopes and singled out one of his ally's most generous supporters.
McCain, the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee, suggested casino magnate Sheldon Adelson's $10 million contribution to a pro-Romney super PAC was a conduit for Adelson to use profits from properties in Macau to shape American elections. McCain also criticized the Supreme Court ruling that allows individuals and corporations to make such unlimited donations to nominally independent political action committees.
"That is a great deal of money. And, again, we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization that Teddy Roosevelt had: that we have to have a limit on the flow of money and that corporations are not people," McCain said in an interview with PBS' "NewsHour".
The comment about corporations was at odds with Romney, who last year told a heckler at the Iowa State Fair that "corporations are people, my friend." Romney's critics seized on the comment as proof the wealthy candidate favored businesses over individuals.
The NewsHour later released a transcript of an unaired portion of the interview where journalist Judy Woodruff reminded McCain of Romney's comments about corporations and his seeming split with Romney.
"I think that in that context he was talking about they are made up of people and that's true in that context," McCain said. "But to be corporations for purposes of involving campaigns, to be treated the same as people, I just don't agree with that."
McCain, a Romney rival in 2008 and now one of his top supporters, said the Supreme Court got it wrong in Citizens United, the court case that paved the way for super PACs. He called the decision "the most misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court, I think, in the 21st century."
"I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff," McCain said of the justices.