Reilly, whom the Los Angeles Times called a "vitriol-spewing millionaire" and whose mother told SF Weekly that "people do not really like him. He's not lovable" a few years back, once fancied himself a politician. But he lost a multimillion-dollar bid for mayor six years ago. Lately, Reilly's turned to fashioning a political career for his wife, whom he had hoped to get appointed last year to Gavin Newsom's old seat on the city Board of Supervisors. Newsom owed Reilly political favors, and to some the post seemed a gimme shot.
Newsom, however, awarded the position to Michela Alioto-Pier, the niece of a different politico to whom he owed even more pressing political favors. Undaunted, Reilly's now gunning for a west San Francisco Assembly seat to be vacated by Leland Yee, who'll be running for state Senate. The target was made attractive by his wife's main opponent, a woman widely considered a political lightweight, Supervisor Fiona Ma.
Ma, however, is not without qualities, including $250,000 raised largely from local developer and property interests; the patronage of her former boss, Assembly Speaker John Burton; and informal political strategy help from Jack Davis, another one-time big-daddy S.F. political consultant who now lives in Sedona, Ariz., and who happens to be a former comrade of -- and current sworn enemy to -- Clint Reilly.
The coming showdown between these passionate foes has the political world abuzz.
Davis is credited with dashing Reilly's mayoral hopes in 1999 by publicly stating that Reilly beat up a woman. The story was never substantiated, but it influenced Reilly's public image as a volatile, mean-spirited man.
Davis appears prepared to entertain this tried-and-true formula this time around. He offered me highly specific advice on where one might dig for dirt on Reilly and his wife, then iced the cake with a trademark bon mot.
"I chortle at the thought of Eric and Clint and Janet in the bunker of a campaign office dealing with Clint's temper, raised voice, and past," Davis said when I spoke with him last week. "Hopefully they'll videotape it."
Reilly's supporters, for their part, are doing their best to parlay the Ma-Davis connection into a smear of their own, making a whispering campaign issue of Ma's attendance a couple of weeks ago at a 7:30 a.m. meeting where Davis and local political fixer Joe O'Donoghue gathered a roomful of kibitzers to form a new political group they call the San Francisco Taxpayers Union.
Ma was the only political officeholder at the event. Perhaps the Taxpayers Union is Ma's shadow campaign committee, pro-Reilly whisperers say.
Ma, for her part, told me she merely dropped by because she saw a flier. And I'm not so sure the new group is about Ma.
It's apparently being formed for a simpler, more elegant cause. It's all about two old hacks who wish to threaten the power of the standing mayor, to reap possible benefits further down the road.
O'Donoghue, for various reasons, has bet his political fortunes during the current mayoral term on opposing Newsom. The "Mission Statement" on the Taxpayers Union Web site contains unspecific maxims about curbing waste and challenging bureaucracy. O'Donoghue, however, says that the group may be used to float a possible ballot initiative aimed at eliminating the city's Redevelopment Agency. The agency, hated by many for its reputation as a wasteful and arrogant bureaucracy, also happens to be one of the more powerful political and economic tools at a mayor's disposal. It commandeers land, hands out development contracts, and contains ample bureaucratic sinecures for political allies.
Davis, for his part, includes as one of his consulting clients Angelo Sangiacomo, the owner of a property at Eighth and Mission streets. It's slated to be the site of a large new apartment building, thanks to a recent backroom deal involving Supervisor Chris Daly, Davis, O'Donoghue, and skid-row kingpin Randy Shaw. O'Donoghue says Mayor Newsom is angry he wasn't consulted about the deal. Newsom's economic development officer has threatened to absorb that project into a redevelopment zone, O'Donoghue says. And this would threaten Davis' only (formally acknowledged) San Francisco client.
"We're doing it frankly to kick his ass. Fuck ya," explains O'Donoghue, in reference to Mayor Newsom. "We're going to show you that you're messing with us, and you're messing with the wrong guys."
This is advice that John Kerry might consider as well.
