(CNSNews.com) - Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, the chairman of Mitt Romney's national steering committee, said Tuesday that the media should weed Republican candidates out of the presidential primary race by pulling them from the debates.

At Romney's New Hampshire victory celebration Tuesday night, Sununu told CNN's Candy Crowley that it was understandable for candidates to stay in the race for two or three primaries, but the media would need to "discipline" the Republican primary field by keeping some candidates out of future debates.

"What's going to make this hard is all the debates," Sununu said. "Because frankly, you can stay in this race as long as you keep enough money to buy a ticket to the next debate and show up. Actually, the media's going to have to start showing some discipline and putting a tougher set of criteria on who's allowed to be in or out of the debates, or you're going to have these guys riding the train all the way to June."

"You wouldn't object to that, would you?", Crowley asked.

"It just makes things more complicated," Sununu responded.

Three debates are scheduled in South Carolina before the Jan. 21 primary there. The next debate is on Saturday.