Mark McKinnon

By James Carney

OCCUPATION Media adviser to G.O.P. presidential candidate George W. Bush

ULTIMATE GOAL To convince his fellow Democrats that Bush is a good guy

QUOTE "Bush is a Republican who's actually for things instead of against things"

Like many other Democrats, Mark McKinnon for a long time had little use for George W. Bush. A media consultant based in Austin, Texas, McKinnon had toiled for Democratic candidates for years, and once he nearly took a job with Bill Clinton. In 1990 he helped Ann Richards become Texas Governor, and he regarded her successor with partisan suspicion. But McKinnon, 44, was won over after a dinner with Bush in 1997. He went to work producing the TV ads for the Governor's landslide re-election campaign in 1998, and is now running Bush's media campaign for President. McKinnon's party switch still appalls many Democratic friends. Paul Begala, a former Clinton adviser, attributes it to "a mid-life crisis." McKinnon prefers to call it "a mid-life awakening."

Bush's TV ads, which have begun airing in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, showcase McKinnon's fondness for retro black-and-white footage and jittery, MTV-style editing. McKinnon took an unconventional path to his current job: as a teenager, he ran away to Nashville, Tenn., with dreams of becoming a country-music star; he wrote songs under Kris Kristofferson's tutelage and almost had one of his numbers recorded by Elvis Presley. "But Elvis passed away," says McKinnon ruefully. On making the switch from music to politics, he observes, "I turned to show business for ugly people."

--By James Carney