[3] He eventually founded his own consulting company, Cambridge Meridian Group, which provides strategic analysis and planning to corporate clients.
[3] McMullen also taught strategic planning and management, including time on the faculties at Harvard's business and law schools.
[3] From 1993 to 1997, McMullen served as an advisor to Senator Bill Bradley, and provided analysis and policy recommendations on issues including reducing crime in the United States and long-term management of the Social Security program.
[7] As related by Chris Graff, longtime Vermont bureau chief for the Associated Press, McMullen's candidacy sustained an immediate blow when Graff interviewed retired Senator Robert Stafford about the January 1998 ice storm and other current events.
[8] In the Republican primary, McMullen faced Fred Tuttle, a retired dairy farmer who had starred in a mock documentary film called Man with a Plan, a comedy about a retired farmer who decides to run for Vermont's seat in the United States House of Representatives.
[6] Tuttle then ran in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, partly to generate awareness of the movie, and partly to mock McMullen as a carpetbagger and flatlander (Vermont slang for an out-of-stater) who had moved to Vermont only because he thought it would be easier to run for the Senate there than in more populous Massachusetts.
[6] Tuttle immediately announced his intention to vote for incumbent Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, after which the two made several joint appearances.
In November, Leahy won the general election with 71 percent of the vote to McMullen's 25, with the rest scattered among minor candidates.
[5] In 2012, McMullen was the Republican nominee for Vermont Attorney General, and faced Democrat William Sorrell, the longtime incumbent, who was running for his eighth two-year term.