page_title: Mark McKinnon
section_title: Media career and political reform efforts
hierarchical_section_title: Mark McKinnon / Career / Media career and political reform efforts
caption_attribution_description: English: Mark McKinnon in front of a Jeb! 2016 bus
context_page_description: Mark David 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.
  McKinnon has worked for many causes, companies and candidates, including former President George W. Bush, Late Senator John McCain, Late Texas Governor Ann Richards, Congressman Charlie Wilson, and musician and philanthropist Bono. He has served on the boards of numerous organizations dedicated to reforming the influence of money in politics.
context_section_description: McKinnon developed the show concept, co-created, co-hosts, and serves as co-executive producer of Showtime's real-time political documentary series, The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth. He also served as a consultant for the political drama television series, The Newsroom (HBO) and House of Cards (Netflix). McKinnon has been a regular columnist for The Daily Beast and The Daily Telegraph (London).
  He was a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy (2007, 2011) and the Harvard Institute of Politics (2012). In addition to Harvard, McKinnon has lectured at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves on the board of the Austin Film Society.
  In recent years, McKinnon has dedicated much of his time toward political reform efforts. He is a co-founder of the bi-partisan organization No Labels, which advocates nonpartisan solutions to political and social problems. He has served on the boards of non-profit organizations countering the influence of money in politics, including CounterPAC, Mayday PAC, and Take Back Our Republic. He co-chaired for Arts+Labs and served on the boards of the Livestrong Foundation and Change Congress, an organization dedicated to campaign finance reform. Following Lance Armstrong's admission to doping, McKinnon felt "betrayed" by Armstrong and supported the board's effort to distance the organization from its founder.
  McKinnon helped lead the effort to overturn the United States' same-sex marriage ban by serving as co-chair of Southerners for the Freedom to Marry, alongside Julian Castro. In 2013, he was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.
caption: McKinnon in front of a Jeb Bush bus
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