Sacramento – As California's top political consultant for decades, Stu Spencer followed certain guidelines.
Those guidelines helped elect actor Ronald Reagan as California governor and later president, and helped elect New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, President Ford, Governor Pete Wilson, and hundreds of unknown Republican politicians across California and the country.
The down-to-earth Californian with a familiar sense of humor loved the political game, equating the competition with sport, and he loved it too. He and his early partner Bill Roberts pioneered the use of targeted mail and television advertising aimed at specific voter groups. But after the election battles ended, he enjoyed the company of Democrats and Republicans alike, regaling friends and foes with war stories met with streams of laughter.
Spencer died on January 12 at his home in Palm Desert. He is 97 years old.
One of his strengths is the courage to speak truth to power. And a mentor was determined to be a straight shooter with clients.
A classic example is when White House aides dragged Spencer into the Oval Office in 1976 to say to Ford what no one else had dared to say: “Mr. Chairman, excuse me… but you are a propagandist.
When Ford hit the campaign trail, polls showed him losing support. So Spencer, the president's chief strategist, kept him hidden in the Rose Garden for a few weeks in the early fall.
Ford lost anyway to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Another example is in 1983, when President Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in a speech. First lady Nancy Reagan was upset that her husband was so mean. He asked Spencer to urge the president to reduce it.
Nancy said, “Stu, what do you think?” She opened the intervention by asking. The counselor remembered me once. “I said, 'He's right. It's an evil empire. But… before I could explain the 'but,' Reagan cut me off. He said, 'That's enough. What's dessert, Mommy?' “
The president softened his Soviet rhetoric.
But another Spencer tip is to encourage candidates to be themselves. Speak from the heart.
Marty Wilson is a former top adviser to Governor Wilson (no relation) who worked with Spencer for a while and then opened his own consulting shop. He recalls bringing former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina to meet with Guru when he was preparing to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010. Fiorina wanted to know what position she should take on abortion.
“What do you believe?” Spencer asked, according to Wilson. “I don't care if it's pro-life or pro-life. I don't know three months from a semester. But one level and stick with it. Be yourself.”
Fiorina ran as an anti-abortion candidate and won the Republican nomination, but lost the general election to incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
In 1966, Spencer didn't need to promote Reagan when he first ran for governor. It came naturally. As a result, the political newcomer became a critical issue for voters: campus unrest.
Reagan continued to attack student unrest at UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the free speech movement. In a Fresno speech, he specifically “took on the Cal hippies,” Spencer recalled an oral history when interviewed by Reagan biographer Lou Cannon. “He really followed them.
“We're back [motel] room and I asked, 'Why are you talking about that? This is a defeat at the polls.' He looks me in the eye and says, 'It won't be there when I come.' He was right.
Reagan took up the issue as the audience kept asking him about it during question-and-answer sessions.
He was elected in a landslide against Democratic Governor Pat Brown.
Another guide Spencer wanted the candidates — especially Reagan — to make available to the news media.
“We were afraid he would be crucified as a guy who did everything from the script to the actor-turned-politician,” Spencer told me. “We want you all to realize that he's got some brains, some ideas.”
On most afternoons during the 1966 campaign, Reagan would sit down and hold news conferences. And, as governor, he conducted every week without fail. Unfortunately, he rarely held them as president, reducing public access.
Another tip: When a campaign fails, change the discussion. That led Reagan to select Sandra Day O'Connor as the first female Supreme Court justice.
During the 1980 race, Reagan was “harassed” by pro-women's rights and pro-environment protesters, says columnist Ken Kachijian.
“Stu came up with the idea to get Reagan to promise to put a woman on the Supreme Court. People think normal now. But then it was a great idea. Stu's political intuition is that you can change the whole conversation. Overnight, the demonstrations dispersed.
President Reagan on the steps of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on November 1, 1984, with senior members of his campaign and White House staff, including Stu Spencer, wearing a light jacket.
(Barry Thumma/Associated Press)
Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide.
Spencer was years ahead of other Republicans in advising the GOP to be more welcoming to Latinos. The party was committing “political suicide”, he complained to me in 1997. Wilson and the GOP strongly supported Proposition 187 three years later, denying public services to immigrants living here illegally. Voters overwhelmingly passed the measure, but a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.
“We're dramatically losing market share to a rapidly growing segment of the electorate,” Spencer told me. “Our party has a sad — and politically self-defeating — history of alienating immigrant groups.”
But few asked. His prophecy was fulfilled. Only in the last two elections have Latinos started to turn to the GOP.
Spencer never voted for Donald Trump.
“He said Trump was a pretty despicable man and a criminal — 'I'm not voting for a criminal,'” says his daughter Karen Spencer, a retired political consultant.
The lifelong Republican voted for Democrat Kamala Harris last year and Joe Biden in 2020. In 2016, he did not vote for any major candidate.
“Seeing the party accept Trump, it drove him up the wall. It made him absolutely sick,” said his widow, Barbara Spencer. “He would say, 'I don't know what's wrong with these people.' “
One answer: There were no Reagans in the party. And few, if any, Spencers.
