Clint Reilly, a Bay Area milkman’s son who rose to manage the campaigns of California’s most influential political figures, has died at age 79.
A savvy political consultant, Reilly spearheaded early winning campaigns for some of the most recognizable names in California politics: former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Brandon Heist, Clint Reilly Organization’s head of business operations, said in a statement to The Times that Reilly died over the weekend in San Francisco. He died surrounded by family, which requested privacy. The San Francisco Examiner newspaper, which Reilly bought in 2020, earlier announced its owner’s death Sunday.
“I will always be grateful for Clint’s friendship and counsel over so many years,” Pelosi said in a statement. “As the manager of my first campaign for Congress in 1987, he brought his unmatched strategic mind to help create and amplify my slogan: A Voice That Will Be Heard.”
In a 1987 article, The Times attributed the success of Pelosi’s congressional bid to money — her campaign spent $1 million, more than her 13 opponents combined — and a sophisticated voter turnout program devised by Reilly. At the time, Pelosi was a 46-year-old mother of five children and a party activist known for raising large sums for Democratic candidates.
Reflecting on Pelosi’s rise last November, Reilly wrote in a San Francisco Examiner op-ed, “The mystery of being a political consultant is that you never know how your winning candidate’s career will turn out.”
Reilly’s legacy went beyond catapulting politicians into office.
He helped transform modern campaigning, said Oakland political consultant Jim Ross, who worked for Reilly throughout the ’90s, including on the election and reelection campaigns of San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan.
In the ‘80s, Reilly was among the first consultants to merge grassroots organizing with new technology: using voter roll data to segment and target pivotal voters for turnout and persuasion, Ross said.
“It was a way to make sure that he spent resources effectively,” Ross said.
Reilly’s data-driven voter targeting tactics helped Feinstein, then-San Francisco mayor, beat a recall effort in 1983. They later had a public falling-out in 1989 during Feinstein’s failed campaign for governor.
Reilly’s portfolio wasn’t strictly Democratic. In 1993, he coordinated businessman Richard Riordan’s successful campaign for Los Angeles mayor by targeting homeowners’ anxieties about unemployment, crime and other symptoms of urban decay. When elected, Riordan became the first Republican mayor of Los Angeles in 36 years — and no Republican has been elected to that office since.
Reilly also advised the California insurance industry.
In 1988, he led the insurance industry’s losing $60-million initiative campaigns for Propositions 104 and 106. The pair of insurance industry-sponsored measures was designed to compete with Propositions 100 and 103, initiatives backed by trial lawyers and consumer advocates who wanted to reform the industry.
Voters ultimately passed Proposition 103, which promised insurance rate roll-backs and created the elected state insurance commissioner role. But Ross said it was one example of how Reilly would search for creative ways to achieve his client’s goals.
“Clint really pioneered in that election the idea of running competing ballot measures,” Ross said. “The reform measure was extraordinarily popular, it was going to pass, so instead of going at it directly, he ran a competing measure.”
A 1994 profile in The Times, from when Reilly was running Democrat Kathleen Brown’s bid for governor, described him as “one of the most powerful–and feared–political operatives in California.”
“When the opponent knows you have (him) on your side, a chill goes up their spine,” former San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan told The Times. “He’s certainly better to have inside the tent than outside.”
Born in Oakland in 1947, Reilly was drawn to politics from an early age. He ran successfully for class president during fifth grade, with a campaign slogan his sister devised: “Take a Hint, Vote for Clint.”
Reilly’s relationship with Eugene Boyle, a Bay Area Catholic priest and liberal activist known for supporting the Civil Rights Movement, shaped his political views. He was passionate about supporting “the underdogs,” Ross said.
Reilly spent nine years in seminary before switching to pursue politics. His big break came in 1979, when he ran San Francisco Supervisor Quentin Kopp’s campaign for mayor. Kopp lost, but Reilly’s name stuck.
He soon developed a reputation for charging top dollar for his campaign strategy services and for his heavy campaign spending. In 1982, after Reilly brought Boxer to a decisive primary victory in her first congressional race, she fired him over excessive campaign spending, the Times reported in the 1994 profile.
As a boss, Reilly was “extraordinarily demanding,” Ross said, adding, “I reread pieces of direct mail five and six times now because of him.”
He also had a generous side, Ross said. Reilly spent time teaching young staffers the art of campaigning, a rarity in politics. Even after he left political consulting and shifted his focus to real estate, Reilly continued to help candidates with fundraising and messaging.
Reilly ran unsuccessfully for San Francisco mayor in 1999 and later turned his attention to local media and philanthropy, founding a nonprofit in 2008 to offer scholarships for low-income students to attend private college-preparatory high schools.
Reilly’s passing will not change the structure or current operations of the Clint Reilly Organization, Heist said. The organization’s media division includes the San Francisco Examiner — which Reilly acquired in 2020 alongside its now-defunct affiliate SF Weekly — and the Nob Hill Gazette, which he bought in 2016. The organization also has a hospitality company and real estate division.
“The organization’s commitment to its employees, partners, and the community remain firmly in place,” Heist said.
Condolences poured in from leaders across California on Monday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom in a statement honored Reilly as a “San Francisco institution” with a brilliant mind and generous heart.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said on social media the city “lost a civic leader who left a lasting mark on our city.”
Reilly is survived by his wife Janet and two daughters, Jill and Ava. Memorial arrangements will be announced later.
