Getty McCain warns GOP against personal attacks

Arizona Sen. John McCain warned Republican presidential candidates on Sunday the GOP will “pay a price" at the polls if they continue personal attacks on “character and integrity.”

“I think we are hurting ourselves and our chances in general election if we disparage each other and impugn character,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I wish we would think about Ronald Reagan, and the way he conducted his campaigns.”


McCain said he believes candidates should condemn bigotry when they hear it on the campaign trail, which he experienced when he ran for president in 2008.

He corrected a woman at a town hall for calling President Barack Obama an “Arab,” saying Obama is a “decent family man,” with whom he disagrees on policy. But in a similar incident recently in New Hampshire, GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump did not object.

McCain said he was “not sure” why his fellow Republicans weren't now following that example. But he noted, “There’s a lot of people in the party who are not happy with the tenor of some of the remarks and the allegations about each other.”

But McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, didn’t hold back in criticizing Obama on his handling of the Syrian crisis, saying, “We don’t have a strategy.”

McCain laid out the terms of what he considers the best strategy going forward: “Stop the barrel bombing, establish a no fly zone, arm the Kurds, get some forward air controllers at work there, build up the Free Syrian Army again."

"It’s not too late,” he said.

“This flood of refugees is a direct result of our failed policy,” McCain said. “It was a year ago the president said, our goal was to ‘degrade and destroy ISIS,’ and we’ve made no progress there.”