Mark McKinnon
Mark McKinnon
Mark McKinnonis an American political advisor, reform advocate, media columnist and television producer. He was the chief media advisor to five successful presidential primary and general election campaigns, and is a co-founder of No Labels, an organization dedicated to bipartisanship and political problem solving. He served as vice chairman of Public Strategies, Inc., which was acquired by the international communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton Strategies, and was president of Maverick Media. McKinnon is the co-creator, co-executive producer, and co-host of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
CEOs make hard decisions; sometimes, the least worst is the right one.
I'll tell you, Liz Cheney is going to be a very good candidate. I worked with her during the Bush campaigns. She's smart, she's focused, she's disciplined - and she's got a great back story. She's got a large family. She's a great mom. And she's a hard worker. I think she's going to be a very effective campaigner.
The problem with State of the Union speeches is that they are, by their nature and design, alphabet soup. It's hard to know what a president really cares about when they run down a laundry list and check every issue box under the sun for fear they will offend some constituency if they don't.
Advocacy groups and voters are not wrong to push candidates to declare their position clearly on policy issues. That is good citizenship. Hard questions should be asked of every candidate, every politician. And those public servants should be prepared to answer, but in their own words.
Go Hard or Go Home, but never go home hard!
Debates require a lot of hard work and preparation. If you try to wing it, it shows.
The public will see that partisan axes are being ground.
I've never seen the president burdened by the presidency. He's built to deal with really big events. It's in his DNA.
Conventional wisdom may be upside-down. The economy is always an issue, but I think . . . it has to be viewed in different terms. The Gore camp will try to take credit for the economy. I don't think the voters see it that way.
Drone attacks subvert the rule of law - we become judge, jury, and executioner - at the push of a button.
Both campaigns did all they could do. I think both sides will say we both went out swinging and we didn't leave anything on the field.
There's no question the president's legacy will be dominated by Iraq. The war is really driving almost everything in government.
You adapt to the circumstances and the circumstances are different. I get zero sense of that. This is an administration and a president that are like the Marines -- they're used to taking the beach, they're used to getting shelled. But they dig in and they do their jobs.
I think Karl is right back in the middle of the picture, and will be for the foreseeable future.