Advertising guru Fred Davis III left the John McCain campaign last year when it was running low on funds and getting nowhere in the polls.
But the man they call “Hollywood” rejoined the McCain team in May as creative director.
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Since then, he has focused and juiced up McCain’s ads, in one case depicting Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, as a celebrity in the tradition of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
And for the last few days, he’s been backstage at the Republican National Convention, altering and compressing the script to reflect concern about Hurricane Gustav.
As it turned out, Gustav did not strike New Orleans with the anticipated force, but Davis was still left with the job of managing what had become a shorter convention.
He also has been working on a video introducing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s surprise pick as his vice-presidential running mate. The video, to be shown today, will be narrated by the actor Jon Voight.
Davis was familiar with Palin, having produced ads for her successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign.
But this time around, he has had to deal with the attention generated by the announcement that Palin’s oldest daughter, Bristol, is pregnant and unmarried.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Davis is a somewhat unconventional figure at the convention, where the suits generally wear suits.
“Mr. Davis - with his feathered and graying long hair, jeans and black linen shirt and nickname ‘Hollywood’ - could be mistaken for a band member of his friend Joe Cocker.”
A native of Oklahoma, Davis, 56, dropped out of college and took over his father’s three-man advertising agency when the elder Davis died.
He grew the company that became Davis & Matos, Inc., eventually moving it to California and renaming it Strategic Perception Inc.
The company has had a wide variety of corporate clients including The Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Company and the Associated Funeral Directors Service Corporation.
In 1994, Davis took on his first political campaign, helping his uncle, Republican James Inhofe, win election to the U.S. Senate from Oklahoma.
Davis and his company have since worked on many Republican campaigns, including the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush and the 2006 re-election of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
His campaign ads are sometimes marked by humor and/or pointed satire.
In 2002, he helped Sonny Perdue become governor of Georgia by creating an ad that suggested Perdue’s opponent, the incumbent governor, was a giant rat roaming the state.
Davis is also adept at suggesting an opponent’s strength is a liability, as in the Obama “celebrity” ad that tries to undercut the enormous attention drawn by Obama in Europe.
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