Joe McLean
Senior Partner
McLeanClark, LLC
A veteran political and public affairs specialist with a winning history in groundbreaking political campaigns, not-for-profit institutions and advocacy organizations, McLean was part of the founding leadership team of Barack Obama’s successful U.S. Senate race and managed Governor L. Douglas Wilder’s historic election in Virginia.
As a campaign manager and as a consultant, McLean has worked in dozens of states, giving him a depth of understanding of both the national and various local political cultures. He is widely recognized for breaking new strategic ground to keep his clients ahead of the political curve. McLean established the development structure for VoteVets.org, which rose to prominence by making the voices of soldiers and veterans heard in the debate about the Iraq war. McLean was instrumental in the creation of The Lantern Project, a key issue advocacy campaign that same year. Lantern’s intense focus on in-depth policy and public attitude research and promoting little-know facts through micro-targeted communication changed the course of the public debate. He is an active member of the national grassroots movement, No Labels.His success in politics springs from hard-won experience in the business world and on Capitol Hill. McLean served as President and CFO of a commercial construction company in Nashville, and is the fifth generation to raise cotton on the family farm in Quincy, TN. He served as a legislative assistant in the Tennessee delegation and was a campaign finance analyst with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.McLean lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Kiki McLean and their two children.