Mark McKinnon Quotes
When elected officials and others contribute to a climate and culture that fosters hyper-partisanship, we've got to blow the whistle.
McKinnon, Mark. "How to Cure the Partisan Idiot." The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 10 Jan. 2011.
At the time Congress was gridlocked in bitter hyperpartisan conflict. Most people called for more comity and bipartisanship and most politicians wanted more bipartisanship but blamed the other party for the rift. Mourdock, arguing for less bipartisanship and no compromise defeated Richard Lugar in the Republican Senatorial Primary election. Lugar, one of the most respected and effective Senators was a statesman who worked with any and all to find effective compromises to reach national solutions. The nation was so politically polarized that the Republican Indiana voters ousted one of their most senior senators because he was effective at developing national solutions. See {626717} and {302706} for other Mourdock’s outrageous comments. While this rhetoric won in the Primary, it lost him the general election in a state where Republicans had a strong majority and should have had the seat.
The first Jew to run for the Vice Presidency on a major party ticket.
His description of the extreme partisanship in England at the time could just as easily describe the American political polarization of 2012—85 years later.
This quotation is very important in that Wood was one of the great political historians of early America and his judgment about the hyperpartisanship of 2012 had reached such extremes that our greatest founding fathers could not have survived in that arena.
Mark McKinnon is 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 Showtime's The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth and consulted on the HBO series The Newsroom and Netflix's House of Cards. He was a regular columnist for The Daily Beast and The Daily Telegraph (London).
