His nickname was ‘Satan.’ His political influence was immense

• Clint Reilly helped elect a who’s who of California Democrats and trained generations of political consultants.
• The ex-seminarian had an iron fist, bleeding heart and genius for the business of campaigns.

SAN FRANCISCO — Every election produces a campaign strategist whose victory bestows upon them, for at least a little while, the unofficial title of reigning political genius.

James Carville, Karl Rove, David Axelrod and Stephen K. Bannon have all worn the crown.

For many years, and many election cycles, California’s reigning political genius was Clint Reilly.

In an age before the internet, before social media, before the cable-TV chat shows and before Carville and the like, Reilly came as close to celebrity as a political operative possibly could. He was the subject of fear, admiration, contempt, envy and lengthy newspaper and magazine treatments.

His cherry-red Jaguar, Italian suits, designer eyewear and seaside mansion made Reilly an influencer before there even was such a thing. (A connoisseur of the finer things, he served visitors coffee in bone china when they called on his San Francisco office.)

“It used to be that political consultants and political mechanics were something that only a handful of people thought about,” said Eric Jaye, one of generations of campaign strategists who were trained or inspired — directly or indirectly — by Reilly. “Clint was the original star consultant who made news himself and shaped the political discussion.”

Reilly, a working-class product of Oakland who crossed the Bay and scaled the heights of San Francisco business, culture and politics, died earlier this month at age 79.

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For someone who never held political office — a 1999 bid for San Francisco mayor was a notable flop — Reilly wielded considerable influence.

A list of the many Democrats he helped elect — among them Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — reads like a scroll of modern California history. At one time, the sitting mayors of both San Francisco and Los Angeles were clients of Reilly.

He wasn’t flawless as an election strategist. Like any political operative, he had his share of defeats.

Reilly’s particular genius lay in the methodology — vertical integration — he brought to campaigns. Typically, one consultant would handle television advertising, another direct mail, another polling, another big-picture strategy, and so on.

“Everything was in-house with Clint and, at least in San Francisco, he was the first to do that,” said Jerry Roberts, who was a scruffy reporter for the city’s alt-weekly when he met a shaggy-haired Reilly more than 50 years ago. At the time, campaigns were a sideline for Reilly, who supported himself selling doodads and other salvaged wares in a movable flea market he operated on Fisherman’s Wharf.

“It was a smart business model,” said Roberts, who went on to lead two major California newspapers.

It made Reilly very rich.

In 1988, he managed what, at the time, was the most expensive political campaign in California history, a $64-million effort by the insurance industry to beat back a Ralph Nader-inspired reform initiative. Reilly lost, but his firm cleared at least $6 million on that contest alone — or about $17 million in today’s dollars.

“So that’s where our premiums went,” one guest observed with a low whistle as he arrived at the state-of-the art headquarters Reilly built not long after the Proposition 103 campaign. (Naturally, he threw an open house; for all his affluence, Reilly never did entirely shake the proletariat chip on his shoulder.)

A onetime seminarian — he left three years shy of being ordained a Catholic priest — Reilly was no saint.

He was hot-tempered, profane and egotistical. He embraced the nickname “Satan,” which a former client affixed after Reilly went to work for an archrival, as a reflection of his reputation for intimidation and mastery of the political dark arts.

In one fit of pique, Reilly took the unheard step of firing a client — Feinstein — via faxed press release because, he said, the former San Francisco mayor lacked the requisite fire to run for governor. The two eventually reconciled, though Feinstein stuck with members of the team that replaced Reilly and helped guide her to successive terms in the U.S. Senate.

If Reilly was at times overbearing — and known for being the kind of hellacious boss who gave employees night sweats — he was also generous and a genuine bleeding heart.

Before his career took off, Reilly volunteered for the United Farm Workers and lived an ascetic life, sheltering in church halls, as he ministered to the poor. Once he established his high-end consulting firm, Reilly retained his political staffers at no small expense, even during the lull between campaigns, rather than hiring and firing them as seasonal workers, which was the norm.

After leaving professional campaign consulting in the mid-1990s, and making a substantial fortune in real estate, Reilly gave prolifically to various charities and assorted civic caucuses. He started a charitable foundation of his own, Bay Scholars, which helps poor and underserved youth attend Catholic high schools throughout the area.

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In 1987, when Reilly arguably resided at the height of his power and influence, he took on Pelosi as a client.

She was running for a rare open congressional seat in San Francisco and, though well known in political circles as a prodigious Democratic fundraiser and high-level activist, Pelosi was a blank slate to many voters. Reilly came up with a slogan that played on Pelosi’s Washington connections and many important friendships: “A voice that will be heard.”

More than that, he made a key tactical decision in the waning days of the campaign.

Pelosi was one of 14 candidates, several of them well-known Democratic officeholders. Ignoring Pelosi’s objections, Reilly sent out a mail piece to the city’s vastly outnumbered Republicans suggesting that a Democrat was bound to win the congressional seat and arguing that Pelosi was the best — or, at least, not the worst — of the bunch.

On election day, Pelosi lost the Democratic vote to Harry Britt, who succeeded Harvey Milk on the Board of Supervisors after Milk’s assassination. Still, Pelosi prevailed, by less than 4,000 votes out of nearly 108,000 cast. The winning margin was her Republican support.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Perspectives

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Ideas expressed in the piece

• The article portrays Clint Reilly as California’s preeminent campaign strategist for many years, arguing that in the pre-internet era this consultant achieved a rare kind of celebrity status and was seen as a “reigning political genius” whose work shaped the state’s political conversation.
• It emphasizes Reilly’s trajectory from working-class Oakland roots to the upper echelons of San Francisco business and politics, suggesting that this ascent gave the strategist both a lingering “proletariat chip” on the shoulder and a penchant for conspicuous luxury, from a cherry-red Jaguar to designer suits and a seaside mansion.
• The piece contends that Reilly’s particular innovation was a vertically integrated campaign model—bringing polling, television, direct mail, and strategy under one roof—described as a “smart business model” that both transformed how campaigns were run and made the firm extraordinarily profitable.
• It argues that Reilly wielded outsized influence over California’s Democratic establishment, highlighting the strategist’s role in electing figures such as Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and noting that, at one point, the sitting mayors of both San Francisco and Los Angeles were clients, making Reilly a central behind-the-scenes force in modern California political history.
• The article presents a complex moral portrait, describing Reilly as hot-tempered, profane and egotistical and noting the consultant’s embrace of the nickname “Satan” as a nod to intimidation and mastery of political “dark arts,” while at the same time stressing a “bleeding heart” side rooted in early work with the United Farm Workers, a habit of keeping staff on payroll between campaigns, and later philanthropic efforts including a Catholic school scholarship foundation.
• It uses Reilly’s work for Pelosi in her first congressional race as a case study of tactical daring, recounting how the strategist overrode the candidate’s objections to target San Francisco’s small Republican electorate with a mail piece and suggesting that this maneuver helped secure a narrow overall victory, thereby illustrating how an operative’s decisions can alter the course of political history.
• The piece also notes that Reilly’s influence extended into corporate and ballot-measure politics, pointing to the consultant’s management of a then-record $64-million insurance industry campaign against Proposition 103 and arguing that, even when such efforts failed at the ballot box, they underscored the scale of resources and power that elite strategists could command.

Different views on the topic

• In contemporaneous coverage of Pelosi’s 1987 special election, one report described the general-election outcome as an easy, more-than-2-to-1 victory over Republican Harriet Ross in a heavily Democratic district, portraying the race as “breezed” through by Pelosi rather than as a knife-edge contest decided by consultant maneuvering - [1]. This framing stresses partisan makeup and candidate strength more than behind-the-scenes tactical genius.
• Earlier reporting on the special primary to succeed Rep. Sala Burton highlighted Pelosi’s status as a longtime Democratic Party activist and fundraiser, noting the candidate’s role as former state party chair and her deep ties to the Burton political network - [2]- [5]. By foregrounding these credentials, such accounts implicitly credit established political connections and organizational base—rather than a single consultant’s strategy—as central to Pelosi’s rise.
• UPI’s analysis of the same sequence of races characterized the district as so overwhelmingly Democratic that, once Pelosi secured the party’s nomination, the general election held little suspense - [3]. This perspective suggests that structural partisan advantage and voter registration patterns were decisive factors, countering narratives that place determinative weight on late-campaign tactical gambits.
• Biographical timelines that chart Pelosi’s subsequent career emphasize decades of independent leadership, particularly the role as the first woman Speaker of the House and as one of the most powerful figures in contemporary U.S. politics - [4]. By focusing on long-term legislative strategy, coalition-building, and institutional influence, these accounts present the trajectory as evidence of enduring personal political skill, rather than primarily as a product of early consultant-driven campaigns.
• Taken together, these news and biographical perspectives place greater emphasis on candidate qualities, party networks, and the structural dynamics of a safe Democratic district than on the decisive influence of any single operative - [1]- [2]- [3]- [4]. In doing so, they offer a contrasting view to consultant-centered narratives, suggesting that while strategists matter, electoral outcomes and political careers are often attributed in public record to broader forces and to the officeholders themselves.