McCain: Palin was 'better candidate' than Romney

This is a retelling, in our own words, of the POLITICO report published July 17, 2012.

Mitt Romney's tax returns had nothing to do with Senator John McCain's decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, McCain said — he chose the former Alaska governor because she was a "better candidate."

The question had an edge to it. McCain had received more than two decades' worth of Romney's tax returns when the former Massachusetts governor was undergoing vice-presidential vetting four years earlier — far more than Romney had released publicly in the 2012 campaign. Democrats had begun asking whether McCain had seen something untoward in those returns and picked Palin instead.

On Tuesday, McCain flatly rejected the suggestion and grew visibly angry at the questions. The contents of Romney's returns had not disqualified him, McCain said; the choice of Palin was a straightforward judgment that she was the stronger candidate at the time.

The exchange captured the tax-return controversy's second-order effects. The issue was no longer just what Romney's returns contained, but what everyone who had seen them might know — and McCain, having seen more of them than almost anyone outside Romney's accountants, found himself drafted into the argument whether he liked it or not.

His answer settled one question and left the larger one untouched: the public still had not seen the returns, and would not, in any number beyond the two years Romney eventually released.