Posted on 06/07/2005 5:22:03 AM PDT by Gipper08
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Mark McKinnon, the Austin political consultant who oversaw the advertising for President Bush in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, has committed to help Sen. John McCain in a second presidential bid.
McKinnon - one of the president's closest friends and confidants and a frequent mountain biking companion - met with the Arizona Republican over lunch this spring in the Senate dining room to discuss his support, said a GOP activist familiar with the meeting.
At this point, McCain, who lost to Bush in a bitter 2000 Republican primary, is in the early but unmistakable stages of laying the groundwork for another campaign. And McKinnon has indicated he would review his options, should Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, run in 2008.
The White House has sent word that Jeb Bush should be taken at his word, that he will not run. Rice, just four months into her new job, is not expected to seek the presidency, though some top Republicans have suggested she might be considered for vice president.
McKinnon, vice chairman of the Austin-based consulting firm Public Strategies Inc., said on Monday he's had "friendly conversations with Senator McCain" but would not discuss his commitment.
"I like the senator a lot, but it is too early to speculate on his intentions, as he has said himself, not to mention mine," McKinnon said in an e-mailed statement. "My political focus right now is on a successful second-term agenda for President Bush."
McCain's political strategist, John Weaver, said the senator is heartened by those "encouraging him to run," but that he has not yet decided whether he will.
"He's not out organizing," Weaver said, "and he's instructed us not to do that, either....."
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(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
I will sit out before I help McPain with getting into the White House. I dislike him as much as I do Hitlery
He has been scheduling appearances with organizations that can only be identified as skepticle or out-right hostile in the past. He has been wading into the lions den and answering the hard questions and promoting an agenda that most on this board would find very attractive.
If, through this long process, he should find himself at the top of the list of Republican candidates, I could think of no better candidate to be facing a Hillary Clinton.
Frankly, I think he would leave her babbling in the middle of the room while the rest of the crowd moved on.
Read the glowing "letters to the editor" in your local newspaper every time a McCain article is printed...it's evident that the gap between the average Republican's perception of McCain and FR's perception of him is tremendous.
yes, after a disgusting liberal named Carter was in office.
The neocons better understand that there are a lot of conservative GOP women. I believe that a lot of us cannot stand McCain.
As for the MSM, they'll love McCain until he's nominated--then they'll cut him down. His cuddling up with the MSM won't get him a break after the GOP sticks its neck out.
What alarms me is that McCain is the darling of the "intellectual" neocons. Krauthammer adores him. Podhoretz...William Kristol. With the help of Biden, Albright among others, the Intellectuals, allied with McCain, got the Clinton Administration into the Balkan War.
What FOOL's
I thought Colorado's governor was an up and coming GOP property but he wimped out on the wooden Indian flap.
He can't raise the money he needs.
In November of 2008 you will. You won't stay home and you won't vote for Her Majesty.
No, for him to say he'll sign up with McCain barring two very unlikely scenarios (runs by Rice or Jeb) is a serious commitment.
I work nights and am ready to go to sleep.
You're giving me nightmare material!
DK
If it's a choice between two senators, a senator will win.
Probably, yeah.
I think it's a chickenhawk thing. Many men feel guilty for not serving, then think they're supposed to support the POW just because.
You forgot the "when pigs fly....." in the title.
It ain't gonna happen.
If that is who is running, I'm staying home. They guy is a traitor to his party.
I would have said the same thing about the Dems and Kerry. What we have here is a weak field.
While Jeb has taken himself out of the 08 race, the Bush family will seek to retain power with their newly adopted son and convert to Republican party, William Jefferson Clinton-Bush as the Republican candidate.
GOP voters are faced in the first weeks of 2008 with Her Majesty having already beaten her Democrap opponents to a pulp, making the primaries a mere formality, and these GOP voters focus narrowly on who can beat her and are aided with polls showing McCain as the strongest challenger. The result will be McCain. They will be scared sh!tless with the realization that she who must not be named would basicly be in a 50:50 position to win the WH, just by being the Dem nominee.
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