Mark McKinnon: Bob McDonnell's Election Shows Card Check is a 'Huge Liability for Democrats'

Matt Lewis | November 12, 2009 9:59 AM

Yesterday I had the chance to chat with Mark McKinnon, a media expert and a former presidential adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain.

After dispatching with out conversation about the circa-1970's Austin, Texas music scene, talk turned to card check.

McKinnon is advising The Workforce Fairness Institute, a group dedicated to educating Americans about the dangers of what they have dubbed, the "Employee 'Forced' Choice Act."

As you may recall, card check was a big issue a few months ago. But, it seems, Democrats have warned big labor to back off the issue, at least, until health care reform is passed. But make no mistake, the issue is dormant, not dead.

McKinnon pointed out to me that Bob McDonnell, who recently was elected governor of Virginia, focused on only a few national issues, but card check was one of them.

As McDonnell said on FOX News's Hannity Show, "Some of the policies that this Congress has pursued and supported by the president like cap and trade and card check and tax increases ... I've made those issues in this race and I think Virginians are not enamored with those policies."

Pointing to the McDonnell victory, McKinnon described card check as, "a huge liability for Democrats." The question, though, is whether or not Democrats will walk the plank in order to pay back big labor. Clearly, this is a vitally important issue to watch, and I will continue monitoring it.

... On another note, I did have a chance to ask McKinnon about a recent controversial quote he gave the Washington Post, in which he appeared to disparage attendees of a "Taxpayer March" as, "right-wing nutballs."

McKinnon tells me the quote was taken out of context -- that his point was that the media would seek to interview only those attendees who were most on the fringe, in order to negatively portray mainstream conservative attendees.

Ironically, the Post seems to have made McKinnon's point by picking and choosing the most controversial of McKinnon's own quotes. McKinnon tells me that he's been around long enough to know that he should have avoided giving them an opportunity to use his quotes out of context.