{"id":14586,"date":"2008-02-14T14:35:41","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T19:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14586.html"},"modified":"2008-02-14T14:35:41","modified_gmt":"2008-02-14T19:35:41","slug":"mccain-advisor-unwilling-to-fight-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-advisor-unwilling-to-fight-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain advisor unwilling to fight Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last summer, Mark McKinnon, the former chief media adviser to George W. Bush, and now a top aide to John McCain’s presidential campaign, admitted<\/a> that he liked Obama so much, he wouldn’t create negative ads against him if the Illinois senator became the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n

Of course, that was easy to say at the time. Over the summer, McCain’s campaign was in deep trouble, and Obama still seemed like a relative long-shot. Given that we’re talking about a top-tier politico who was Bush’s top media guy, I assumed he’d come up with some excuse to change his mind.<\/p>\n

But lo and behold, McKinnon seems to have meant it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A top adviser to John McCain said Wednesday that he will step down from the Arizona senator’s presidential campaign if the presumed GOP nominee faces Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the general election. <\/p>\n

“I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama,” said McCain adviser Mark McKinnon in an interview with NPR’s “All Things Considered.” “I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign.” <\/p>\n

McKinnon, who was a Democrat before serving as President Bush’s ad maker in 2000 and 2004, said that he plans to be behind McCain “100 percent” no matter who the Democratic nominee is. He explained, however, that if the Democrats nominate Obama, he will be supporting McCain “from the sidelines.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have to admit, this is just not normal. I can’t think of a comparable example of a major candidate’s key advisor stepping down because he or she liked the other party’s candidate so much.
\n
\nI have two quick questions, though:<\/p>\n

1. Why would McCain hire a media advisor who was prepared to quit if Obama became the Democratic nominee?<\/p>\n

2. Why would McKinnon go to work for McCain if he were prepared to quit if Obama became the Democratic nominee?<\/p>\n

I suspect the answer to both is the same: they assumed Clinton would get the nod and this wouldn’t be an issue.<\/p>\n

As for conservatives, this story apparently is yet another reason for the right to distrust McCain. Here’s an item<\/a> from one far-right blogger:<\/p>\n

If these are the kind of people that John McCain has surrounded himself with, we are in for BIG trouble. […]<\/p>\n

If I am John McCain, I fire this weasel and throw him and his ugly hats out of my campaign office RIGHT NOW.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That seems unlikely, but it’s an interesting story, isn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last summer, Mark McKinnon, the former chief media adviser to George W. Bush, and now a top aide to John McCain’s presidential campaign, admitted that he liked Obama so much, he wouldn’t create negative ads against him if the Illinois senator became the Democratic nominee. Of course, that was easy to say at the time. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}