McCain supports ban on affirmative action

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has endorsed a proposal to eliminate affirmative action, drawing a rebuke from his Democratic rival.

Speaking in an interview on ABC's This Week on Sunday, the Arizona senator said he supports a ballot measure that would eliminate affirmative action in his home state.

"I do not believe in quotas," McCain told ABC. "I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I've always opposed quotas."

The Arizona referendum would in prohibit public officials from using race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin as a preferential factor in their actions.

Obama immediately criticized McCain's position during a speech at the Unity conference of minority journalists in Chicago.  "I am disappointed, though, that John McCain flipped and changed his position. I think in the past he had been opposed to these kinds of ... referenda or initiatives as divisive," Obama said.

The initiative is part of "a nationwide attempt by Ward Connerly to have governmental affirmative action policies eliminated," according to McClatchy-Tribune. Connerly, a black conservative from California, led a successful effort to ban affirmative action in that state and has been trying to replicate his success in other states.

McClatchy-Tribune also described McCain's position as "an apparent shift," citing his support for affirmative action in certain cases in the past and his opposition to a 1998 resolution in the Arizona legislature that asked voters to eliminate most preferences based on race, gender or ethnic origin.