Signs of the End Times
Posted by Alice Chasan on May 22, 2008
The end of attack politics, that is.
Could it be? Ask Mark McKinnon, who resigned from the McCain campaign Tuesday, fulfilling a vow he’d made last year not to help John McCain in a battle against Barack Obama.
Now that Obama is the putative Democratic candidate, McKinnon—a former Democrat-now-Republican who is known as a political advertising wiz—has made good on his word.
Talk about signs and wonders. No wonder the blogosphere is abuzz with posts on this amazing turn of events.
Think about it: McKinnon was George W. Bush’s chief media adviser in both 2000 and 2004. Part of the Bush/Rove machine. Here he is (photo, left) biking with W, looking like a guy who’s imbibed the Crawford Kool-Aid.
But last summer, he told Cox Newspaper’s Washington bureau chief Ken Herman, “I just don’t want to work against an Obama candidacy,” adding that an Obama presidency “would send a great message to the country and the world.”
We could be on the cusp of a transformative campaign, if enough political attack dogs lose their appetite for swift-boating and smear tactics and follow McKinnon’s lead.
Imagine McKinnon as the bellwether for a new political strategy: people in public life keeping their word.
Think of how much air time and mental space that would clear for—dare I wish it?—substantive, policy-oriented debate between the two candidates in the general election.
National Housing Institute
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