“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.”