McCain Adviser Will Quit If Obama Is Nominee

McKinnon says he respects Dem too much to attack him
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 14, 2008 6:30 PM CST
McCain Adviser Will Quit If Obama Is Nominee
Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., talks with reporters on his campaign plane enroute from Kansas to Seattle, while one of his Democratic rivals, Sen. Barack Obama, D- Ill., is seen on an in flight TV screen Friday, Feb. 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)   (Associated Press)

John McCain's chief media adviser will leave the campaign if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee—because he has too much respect for the Illinois senator to go negative against him. “I will be supporting from the sidelines,” Mark McKinnon said when asked yesterday if he’d follow through on a pledge not to be in a fight versus Obama, the Chicago Tribune reports.

McKinnon, who has also been a high-level Bush aide, said he will “be supporting 100% John McCain under any circumstances.” But “I like him a great deal," he said of Obama—and though he disagrees “on very fundamental issues,” he would "simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking” him. He added that negativity would hurt McCain’s chances. (More Barack Obama stories.)

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