"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," the Morning News reports. It goes on: "McKinnon ... 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."
Now, the Senate dining room is not a great place to have a secret meeting. For one thing, it's full of Senators. Dining, mostly. Not a crowd well-known for keeping a secret, and exactly the kind of people who would recognise Mark McKinnon. So, if I were a Senator, planning a presidential campaign three years hence, which I don't want people to know about (we know it needs to be secret because the "GOP activist familiar with the meeting" is an anonymous source) the only place less sensible for my meeting would be somewhere where there were cameras running. I'd go to Arizona. I was in Arizona recently and I can assure you there are lots of places there with not many people.
So, if McKinnon has agreed to work with McCain, I doubt that arrangement was made at that meeting. "McKinnon's commitment to McCain," the Morning News says - (my guess is that 'commitment' is way too strong a word this early on) - "is among the earliest to any candidate, particularly among the cadre of senior advisers who guided the president's last two campaigns."
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