EENE, N.H. - Heidi Quigley, a communications major at American International College in Springfield, Mass., won't be returning to her duties as a New Hampshire volunteer for the George W. Bush campaign.
The 23-year-old Westfield, Mass., woman said a Bush aide asked her to appear in a question-and-answer TV advertisement, part of which compared the Texas governor's tax plan with that of GOP rival Arizona Senator John S. McCain.
Quigley told the aide she didn't have enough information to comment on the issue.
But the campaign, filming the commercial last weekend, said they would feed her the lines when the cameras rolled, encouraging her to say that McCain's plan would keep taxpayers' money in Washington while Bush's proposal would return it to people's pockets.
''I got nervous,'' Quigley said over the phone yesterday. ''I had to keep repeating it. I felt very flustered.''
Then the ad interviewer asked her what she thought of Steve Forbes's negative ad toward Bush. Again, Quigley said she didn't know enough about it. But she claims they fed her this line: ''Four years ago Steve Forbes hurt the Republican party by running negative ads, and he's doing it again.''
Quigley tried to repeat the line but stumbled again. She said she left the shoot feeling ''hypocritical.''
''I felt the comment on McCain was negative and they tried to overshadow it by saying they're against negative ads,'' said Quigley, who is lying low and screening calls after news of her second thoughts broke.
Quigley said she likes McCain and was considering voting for him, though she planned to stay with the Bush camp because she was committed to the job. The flap, now being exploited by the rival campaign, ''just opened my eyes to what goes on.''
Due to graduate in May, Quigley said she would like a career in public relations, and perhaps only half-jokingly added, ''although I'm wondering now if sports PR would be better.''
Bush, who shook McCain's hand at Monday's debate in Michigan and pledged there would be no negative campaigning, said the advertisement will not run, and repeated his vow not to run such commercials.
Dan Schnur, communications director for McCain, said that ''taping a negative ad but promising not to run it is the high-tech equivalent of smoking marijuana without inhaling it.''
Anne E. Kornblut and Charles Radin of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
