The Campaigner

Paul Clinton

Dave Ellis elects candidates.

As a political consultant who has virtually cornered the market on

running campaigns in Newport Beach, Ellis has long been a hot

commodity in City Council elections thanks to a winning track record.

He is also known as a freewheeling bomb thrower. His opponents

often dread his aggressive tactics, one of which surfaced earlier

this week in the form of a deceptive telephone pitch.

“He pushes the envelope until it tears,” said one source who

requested anonymity.

Other political observers defended Ellis as a highly motivated

professional who works in the business of politics, where few friends

have ever been made.

“You get hired to do a job, you get hired to win for your

candidate,” said consultant Eileen Padberg. “It’s a very tough

business and you only get one shot [to win] ... It’s not a business

for the faint of heart.”

Ellis worked on Newport Beach Councilman Steve Bromberg’s 2000

campaign, helping the Balboa Island resident defeat Patricia Beek,

wife of Balboa Ferry magnate Seymour Beek.

“I hired Dave Ellis because I wanted him on my side, not against

me,” Bromberg said.

Ellis, 44, has perfected a shrewd, no-holds-barred campaigning

style, mostly in Newport Beach, for two decades. Using his Irvine

office as a headquarters, Ellis promotes his candidates for local

offices using bulk mailers, phone blitzes, voter surveys and many

other tools of the trade.

With about $20,000 and the right candidate, Ellis can take you to

the top.

His incorporated firm, known as Ellis & Associates, also provides

advice to companies developing products that could be used in the

municipal sphere.

Ellis’ string of successes stretches back to the early 1980s, when

he began to cement his reputation for picking winners for public

office.

In 1984, Ellis helped re-elect Donn Hall to the Costa Mesa City

Council.

Two years later, he was behind the scenes, driving former mayor

Clarence Turner’s winning bid for the Newport Beach City Council.

In 1994, former Newport Beach Mayor Tom Edwards called on Ellis to

help him win office.

Ellis agrees with those who say he is an effective campaign

consultant, but says he isn’t a cynical hired gun whose only interest

in a campaign is the paycheck. He says he chooses to work with

candidates he believes in. Ellis calls criticism of his techniques

“static” and says he is playing the politics game just as anyone else

would.

“All these intramural practices are ancillary to making this

community a better place,” Ellis said. “Politics is definitely a

combat sport. I happen to be on the gridiron.”

When told he was compared by a source to Lee Atwater, the

Republican operative whose hardball politics helped cement the senior

George Bush’s presidential victory in 1988, Ellis said he considered

that a “badge of honor.”

The comparison to Atwater may be fitting considering Ellis’

involvement in Republican causes. As a member of the Lincoln Club, a

major donor to the Republican candidates, Ellis made a connection

with Newport council candidate Bernie Svalstad, who was Ellis’ one

Newport loss on Nov. 5.

Along with his hardball political rep, Ellis is also known as a

family man, devoted to wife Christin and two children. Christin is an

avid fund-raiser for Newport Coast Elementary School, raising more

than $100,000 over the past few years.

On weekend evenings, the couple can be seen having drinks or

dinner around town with any one of a number of Newport-Mesa officials

and luminaries. They are close friends with former Costa Mesa Mayor

Peter Buffa and his wife, Sharon.

It was Sharon, in fact, that managed Gary Adams’ first run for

City Council in Newport before she retired. She recommended Ellis to

Adams.

THE STORY BEHIND

THE VICTORIES

Ellis’ track record speaks to the Newport Coast resident’s success

in political races. In addition to Bromberg, Ellis managed the

campaign of Councilman Gary Proctor that same year.

This year, three of Ellis’ four candidates won seats on the dais.

Mayor Tod Ridgeway and Councilman Gary Adams hired Ellis in their

reelection bids. Former Public Works Director Don Webb, who defeated

Greenlight candidate Allan Beek, also won under Ellis’ aegis.

Earlier this week, a former Ellis ally running against Adams,

cried foul over a purportedly deceptive phone message sent out to

voters at the 11th hour of the campaign.

Richard Taylor, a Newport Beach attorney who battled

shoulder-to-shoulder with Ellis for an El Toro airport, uncovered a

phone message that urged voters to choose third candidate Ron Winship

because he was endorsed by the Greenlight Committee. Winship never

won such an endorsement.

The move, Greenlighters allege, was meant to siphon off votes from

Taylor so Adams would win. Ellis has admitted to creating the

message, but said he never authorized its use, blaming the media

company storing it in an electronic mailbox.

In addition to the races in Newport Beach, Ellis managed 12

campaigns all over the Southland during this election cycle. Ellis

scored a high-profile win in the San Bernardino County District

Attorney’s race when his candidate, Mike Ramos, unseated incumbent

Dennis Stout by 29 points.

However, an Ellis-managed candidate lost in the race for that

county’s assessor.

THE PRICE OF SUCCESS

Taylor has made the case that Ellis sabotaged his campaign against

Adams. However, even if Taylor had received all of Winship’s votes,

he would still have lost.

The two, both members of the Airport Working Group, fought for an

El Toro airport until last March, when voters opted for a park at the

former Marine base. Ellis was the group’s paid consultant.

Taylor, using his post as an officer and colleague of Ellis with

the working group, said he obtained the pass codes for several

messages Ellis had recorded prior to Election Day. One of those was

the Winship message.

“I’m really upset,” Adams said about the incident. “One of the

conditions of working with him was that we run a squeaky clean

campaign.”

Adams called the move an example of “dirty campaigning.”

Even Ellis’ detractors acknowledge his penchant for winning.

“He runs a very good track record of winning and he uses

techniques I thought would not be commonplace today,” said Newport

Beach Councilman John Heffernan. “It’s Enron, WorldCom, Dave Ellis,

run red lights, do whatever it takes to win.”

Heffernan said he talked to Ellis about running his campaign in

2000. During three meetings, Heffernan, an attorney and asset

manager, said Ellis asked him to misrepresent certain details about

himself so he would appear “more electable.”

Ellis has a different version, saying he was the one who turned

Heffernan away, because he wasn’t convinced that the councilman had a

clear point of view.

“John wanted to hire me and I told him ‘no,’” Ellis said. “At the

end of the day, I have to believe all of my folks have a philosophy.

And I didn’t think John did.”

Ellis and Heffernan furthered the divide between each other this

year after the councilman called for an audit of the $3.67 million

grant the city handed over to Ellis and the working group. Ellis

pocketed some $450,000 of that money for his consultant fees.

Ellis’ targets aren’t just contained within Newport Beach’s

borders.

In Costa Mesa’s council election this year, Ellis and the working

group took to the phones as a late-in-the-day blitz against Mayor

Linda Dixon, who has said she doesn’t support an airport at El Toro.

Callers urged voters to turn Dixon out of office. And they did.

“Dave Ellis made statements that he was going to get me and I

guess he did,” Dixon said. “People who resort to moves like that lack

ethics. I’m a firm believer that what goes around comes around.”

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

paul.clinton@latimes.com.