Stuart Spencer
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- For the Australian rules football player with Melbourne, see Stuart Spencer (footballer).
Stuart K. Spencer is a prominent Republican political consultant. As founder of Spencer-Roberts, he and his firm have managed over 400 political campaigns.
Stuart Spencer served in the United States Navy from 1945 to 1946, and then graduated from the East Los Angeles Junior College with an AA, and from California State University at Los Angeles, with a BA degree in Sociology in 1951.
Spencer-Roberts & Associates, Inc., was established in California in 1961 with Bill Roberts. They were among the first professional campaign managers.
In 1962 he managed Tom Kuchel's campaign for United States Senate in California. After that, he managed Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign of 1964, and Don Riegle's run for Congress, Michigan, in 1966.
He ran Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial campaign in California in 1966. That year, it was to Spencer that Reagan said "Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close." He also ran Reagan's gubernatorial campaign in 1970, and his presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984.
Stuart Spencer became the sole owner of Spencer-Roberts in 1974. In 1976 he served as Deputy Chairman for Political Organization in Gerald Ford's presidential re-election campaign. At the time, he was in contact with Ronald Reagan, and told him that Ford wouldn't win the election. When he served as Reagan's campaign manager in 1980, he suggested that he chose George H. W. Bush as his running mate, but later recounted that Reagan wasn't keen to the idea, apparently because Reagan didn't like Bush. "There was no way he was going to pick Bush," said Spencer. "It was chemistry."
In 1985, his firm allegedly received over $350,000 to improve Manuel Noriega's image, and in 1988 he was assigned to improve Dan Quayle's image. In October of that year he remarked on the difficulty of the task, saying "First we had to shut that John Birch father of his up, and then the National Guard thing hit."
Karen Spencer joined Spencer-Roberts in 1989 and expanded the firm's roles into public policy, avocation, and political strategic planning. She registered as a California state lobbyist and as a federal lobbyist in Washington, DC.
Stuart Spencer has had a long friendship with Dick Cheney, having worked with him as far back as the Ford administration. In 1993, he speculated that Cheney would seek the presidency in 1996. He told "Human Events" magazine, "Look, I'm pro-choice and Dick is pro-life but I'm for him if he runs. He's like a brother to me."
