Quotes from Mark McKinnon

As a Republican, I never expected to be working with Hillary Clinton.

I'll tell you, Liz Cheney is going to be a very good candidate. I worked with her during the Bush campaigns. She's smart, she's focused, she's disciplined - and she's got a great back story. She's got a large family. She's a great mom. And she's a hard worker. I think she's going to be a very effective campaigner.

Ronald Reagan was long thought to be the most conservative of Republicans. And by any standard today he is the most popular Republican in modern history. Yet he raised taxes 11 times, supported a ban on assault rifles and the Brady Bill, which mandated background checks, and established amnesty for 3 million undocumented workers.

Politics at bottom is not all that complicated. It's all about timing.

The Newtown massacre created a tipping point on the gun debate in America.

America's commitment to religious freedom and tolerance should not be conditional.

Every day I am being told to sign up for Tumblr, Yammer, Friendfeed, Plaxo, Last.fm, ping.fm or the hot social-media tool du jour that happened to get mentioned on Mashable.com. It is like a social-media arms race. Each one of these new tools is like a cool new night club. Hot today, gone tomorrow, replaced with something else.

You know, Republicans should have a consistent philosophy. And if your philosophy is about limited government and not intruding in people's lives, you shouldn't just inconveniently take a social issue like gay marriage and say, 'Well, unless we think - actually we should be intruding your life.'

Republicans constantly claim to be the party that defends the Constitution. We have no legitimate right to that claim until we get right on gay rights.

Hypocrisy is the scarlet letter in politics.

Consumers can choose from hundreds of channels today, including dozens for kids. At a time of dwindling resources, we don't need to be subsidizing PBS. It's time for Big Bird the mooch to compete with 'Dora the Explorer' and 'Bob the Builder.'

Special interests and opponents have figured out how easy it is to disrupt town halls and get their own message out. The days of the truly free-form town halls may be over.

To open up new markets and create American jobs, we need to make global bilateral free trade agreements a priority as they were under the Clinton administration.

If we cannot come together to pause, to respect our dead and the heroic lives of meaning they led, then ours is truly a civilization lost.

Democrats love to criticize Republicans on guns, but they are generally mute when it comes to taking on Hollywood or the gaming industry.

I think the press has an interest in communicating to its viewers or readers, and their viewers or readers drive profit for those news organizations, so I think those news organizations have a certain bias toward their own readers. Yeah, I think they are a special interest. Of course they are.

America glories in its tradition of the self-made individual. Political candidates compete to be a friend to entrepreneurs, and policymakers, imagining the next Microsoft or Google, design laws to back the innovator in the garage.

It's never popular among young people to be part of the establishment.

A troubled economy is always the sitting president's fault. It was when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, and when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by running against George W. Bush.

Social Security and Medicare are necessary safety nets, but they are nearing insolvency as fewer pay in, more take out, and more take out more.

In politics, not all lies are all lies. And not all truths are complete.

Mention the name George W. Bush in mixed company, and you're likely to spark a lot of debate and emotion - hot and cold, good and bad. Not a lot of neutral reaction. He was elected in the most controversial contest in American electoral history and governed during one of the most tumultuous decades.

The initial attraction of a political convention was that often the outcome was not preordained. There was at least some element of surprise. But, now it's like tuning in to a movie where you already know the plot and the ending. It's just not that interesting.

Immigration reform almost happened under President George W. Bush. Twice. And it was comprehensive.