Adviser: McCain left Michigan due to funds

DETROIT, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain suspended campaigning in Michigan due to public funding limits, one of his advisers says.

U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said the Arizona senator was forced to stop all Michigan campaigning for next month's general election after Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama announced he was forgoing all public funding, The Hill reported Saturday.

The Illinois senator's announcement forced McCain to adhere to specified spending limits, meaning he had to cap his Michigan campaigning at the nearly $8 million he already spent in the state.

"Part of it is they agreed to accept federal matching funds, which capped the money," Upton, who has served as an adviser to McCain, said.

The decision to forgo any additional campaigning in the Midwestern state has not set well with Republican leaders in Michigan, The Detroit Free Press said.

"I don't know what McCain was thinking," Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, a leading state Republican, said of the move. "He's a general who left the battlefield in the middle of the fight."

Michigan party leader told the Press that McCain's move could endanger U.S. House seats currently held by Reps. Joe Knollenberg and Tim Walberg.