A Texas Turncoat Casts His Lustful Eyes Toward Obama

Mark McKinnon is once more practicing his dark craft of surfing the political zeitgeist to land on the shores of fame and prosperity. Perhaps the most opportunistic political consultant in the modern era, McKinnon makes Karl Rove appear to be a principled man. He has gone from progressive Democrat to Bush confidante to McCain advisor and now has his nose pressed to the glass looking in on the Obama campaign.

And nobody does it better.

McKinnon, who attempts to affect the sartorial profile of a French boulevardier as he travels on campaign jets, has the chameleon qualities necessary for political success. Lately, McKinnon has been looking with longing emotions at the Obama campaign and wishing he could play in his old sand box. The signals he is sending that he wants to come home to the Democrats are hardly subtle.

In the early '80s, Mark McKinnon was a progressive Democrat who believed that a government existed to create a fair climate of opportunity for all citizens. I had my share of campaign plane conversations with the novelist manqué and failed Nashville cat and they were always about the little guy getting a break. I thought we thought alike. I thought wrong.

McKinnon went to work for Democratic Texas Governor Mark White and in one of the more ironic moments of his career was the spokesperson who denounced Karl Rove when "Bush's Brain" claimed that White's campaign had bugged Rove's office. Rove, of course, the evidence shows, planted a microphone in his own office in order to detract from his client's failing gubernatorial campaign. Rove was the kind of guy who made McKinnon's skin crawl in those days but he became the kind of guy who made McKinnon's ambitions soar when he hooked up with W.

It took a while, though. McKinnon kept his Democratic and progressive leanings into the years that Ann Richards was the governor of Texas. When she took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention in 1988 and captivated the nation with her anti-Bush rhetoric, the talk of her presidential prospects left McKinnon drooling over his own chance of going to the big show. George W. Bush, however, put an end to Ann's ascension.

But not Mark McKinnon's.

As talk continued circulating about Governor Bush and the White House, McKinnon famously told a reporter about seeing Bush at a party and having that feeling that a man has "when he's at a party with his wife and sees a beautiful woman across the room." The description, which is akin to Rove's first impression of Bush in cowboy boots and blue jeans and more charisma "than any one person should be allowed to have," suggests there is something more latent than political principles in both advisors' fascination with the president.

McKinnon and Bush hooked up and the former Democrat rationalized it away by saying he was "a Bush guy" and not really a Republican. As the candidate's, and then the president's media advisor, McKinnon made the ads that trashed John McCain in South Carolina and beyond in 2000. Of course, that didn't preclude him from becoming the media advisor and TV producer for John McCain's 2008 presidential run. Ambition always trumps politics and principle for McKinnon.

And that's why he has presently cast his covetous eyes in the direction of Barack Obama.

McKinnon was already working for McCain in 2007 when he realized Obama was the kind of candidate he'd dreamed of working for back before he'd abandoned his beliefs for Bush money. McKinnon told McCain that if Obama were to win the Democratic nomination he would have to resign team McCain because the Illinois' senator's effort had the chance to change the country. McCain, who's made a few compromises of his own principles since hugging Bush and reconciling with Rove, said nothing.

The same pledge was made by McKinnon earlier this week on ABC News. If Obama wins, McKinnon quits McCain's campaign. Regardless of how much of an open insult this is to the Republican candidate who is paying McKinnon for his services, it is also revelatory concerning both McCain and McKinnon. The senator seems willing to put up with anything if it gets him closer to his political dream. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson stop being "agents of intolerance" and turn into the base needed for election and Mark McKinnon is not a traitor to the man he is supposedly trying to help win the election.

As for McKinnon, it just means he's still good at jumping from losing horse to the winner. Voters ought to heed this charlatan's words. McKinnon isn't the least bit concerned about harming Obama with attack ads; he knows that McCain cannot beat the Illinois Democrat and he hopes that if he quits McCain that Obama's people will hire him and he will be a Democrat again and back on a front-running horse.

Obama does show the potential to change the country, Mark. But ask yourself what he will be changing it from. He'll be changing it into something that doesn't even begin to resemble the tragedy President Bush and you have facilitated.

Just stay the hell out of the way.

Follow James Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/moorethink

Comments

[kempis]

Sounds like McKinnon is cut from the same, smarmy, self-serving cloth as Dick Morris.

[joselopez]

THIS POST IS S CHEAP SHOT!!! McKinnon stated more than a year ago, before he even knew Obama had a good chance of winning the primary election, that he would not like to campaign against Obama.

[anons]

INformative Mr. Moore, thanks. I heard this guy on NPR and was pretty amazed to hear him express his adulation for Obama's candidacy, and thought it was out of a sincere appreciation rather than an oppurtunistic impulse. I have no doubt Obama would make the right call if this guy ever came knockin, hat in hand.....take care of business texas and give Barack the nomination he's already won!!!

[WIDESTANCE]

mckinnon should be left to rot in the neocon republican hell he so gleefully helped to create

[Ides]

Mark McKinnon, a career sleaze. He was on CNN's Broken Government and I thought he was the most reasonable Republican smear operative ever.

I should have known. He's a Democrat.

[jsinclair]

McKinnon's bad (wasn't he the one who mailed that video tape to Gore's people, hoping--and failing--to entrap them?).

But no one, NO ONE, can make Karl Rove look "principled".

[lynnn]

Women should have stuck up for Richards. Anne should have been given a chance to run, she was always my hero growing up in Dallas. She was the real thing (I know it when I see it).

[BrooklynLager]

I miss Ann Richards.

[TheHandyman]

Ann Richards was living proof that the majority of Texans ignorant barbarians. This woman had class, wisdom, and wit. That she lost to the idiot ignorante for the Govenorship was the start of the long slow slide into the nightmare that has become George the lesser's legacy. If only the Texicans could have been smarter.

[RogerHWerner]

People like McKinnon give politics a bad name. He's rather pathetic. but also emblematic of what this country has become: The end justifies the means and win at all costs. As a society, we should be proud of the McKinnons of the nation. Well, many Americans find such behavior disgusting and that's cause for hope.

[Bfont]

This is why Democrats lose presidential elections. I am voting for Obama and do not necessarily want
Mark McKinnon to join the campaign. However, these tactics are part of politics and the Republicans will use them. You have to fight back. And if he can help, I am all for it.

[TheHandyman]

So if poisoning, slitting people's throats, or killing their children, like they did back in the glorious days of Rome, you'd be for that too? Anything to win? You and the people like you are exactly the reason why this country has turned into the cesspool it has become. You are just another Karl Rove/Mark McKinnon wannabe. You would have served Hitler well.

[SShaw490]

That's ridiculous. Obama's campaign theme is "a new kind of politics, without the divisiveness and polarization of the past". And Obama would be better off running a clean campaign and losing than running a dirty campaign and winning.

At this point, if Obama is slimed by the Republicans, he can use the slime ad in an ad of his own, and show that's the kind of politics he intends to put an end to - kind of like he did with Hillary's "You won't debate me" ad - he said "We've already had 18 debates and we have two more scheduled, and I won't debate? Yep, same old politics...". Right now, Obama's candidacy is self-innoculated against slime. But all bets are off, the first time Obama's campaign does something dirty.

Besides, Obama won't need dirty ads to beat McCain. All Obama has to do to beat McCain is say "100 more years in Iraq", and get up on a stage with him - people will see an old, bitter, angry man standing next to the future of American politics. McCain will be lucky to in more than 10 states against Obama.

[April]

Well put!

[PaulLoeb]

Sad to read this. I'd hoped it was a principled stand...

[Edgy]

Good God, let's hope that somebody from Obama's campaign reads this post! Thanks for the warning, just incredible to me how people like that wake up in the morning and look at themselves, yikes!!!

[JTex]

Well, taken another way, if you're an Obama supporter it's good news?

[altohone]

I feel so sorry for types like McKinnon.

The life of the sheep in politics is downright depressing.

It seems like those who don't believe in evolution, personal or otherwise, would stick with McCain.

[SShaw490]

Like the Bible says, you reap what you sow...I don't feel sorry for him one bit. And I wish he'd stay on with McCain, a slime campaign against Obama is a sure loser. Obama is perfectly positioned to take advantage of an opponent trying to slime him - he can do the same thing he did to the Hillary attack ad in Wisconsin, just put out his own ad, refute the slime ad, and just say, "Same old politics..." Let the American people see him taking the high road while McCain swims in the sewer, and who are Americans going to vote for?

[ricchase]

Professional, career political operatives; do we need them or not? Do they serve a higher purpose or not? Or are they a basic part of the "problem"? Have we gotten so big and over populated that we require professionals to administer our government? Or could a "regular Joe" be as, or more, effective? Will we ever be able to find out?

[PackyJ]

Hurrah!
Well written!