Early career In the late-1970s and early-1980s, Davis was majority partner in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, advertising agency Davis & Nauser (with partner Jeffery Nauser), where his client list included just one political candidate, his uncle, then Tulsa mayoral candidate and current U.S. Senator
Jim Inhofe. Davis left for California when Oklahoma's economy suffered from the collapse of the local oil industry.
Political ads He created the
Celebrity ad for presidential candidate
John McCain and the
Demon Sheep video for California Senate candidate
Carly Fiorina. Davis was described as "the most creative person in the business" by Republican media consultant
Mark McKinnon. His political clients have included
President George W. Bush, presidential candidates
Dan Quayle,
John McCain,
Jon Huntsman and
John Kasich. Senators
Jim Inhofe,
John Cornyn,
Lamar Alexander,
John McCain,
Jeff Flake,
Bob Corker,
Chuck Grassley,
David Perdue,
John Kennedy,
Ben Sasse,
Elizabeth Dole and
Paul Coverdell. Also governors
Sonny Perdue,
Rick Snyder,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
Ernie Fletcher. His long-shot gubernatorial campaign for
Sonny Perdue in Georgia featured a video of a giant rat rampaging Georgia. The rat portrayed the current, popular governor
Roy Barnes. The video is credited as starting the movement toward viral videos in politics. Perdue beat Barnes handily, in spite of being outspent more than seven to one. A similar campaign for then-Governor
Rick Snyder of Michigan featured the unusual Davis slogan, "One Tough Nerd". The slogan caught on across the state helping propel the unknown Snyder past several statewide office holders into a primary win without a runoff, then the general election. He created a well-known 2010 ad for
U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell which featured her declaring she was "not a witch", in response to the re-airing of past statements made by her about her interactions with non-Christian religious practices. O'Donnell's witch statements had become a staple of late night comedy programs, including
Saturday Night Live, before Davis was hired. In February 2012, Davis authored a controversial ad for Representative
Pete Hoekstra for his Senate campaign against incumbent Democrat
Debbie Stabenow. The ad attacked Stabenow as Debbie "Spend-it-now" and showed an Asian woman riding a bicycle in a rice paddy thanking Stabenow (in broken English) for enriching the Chinese economy at the expense of the U.S. Republican strategist
Mike Murphy tweeted that the ad was "really, really dumb", while Stabenow called it "shocking" and "nasty". Hoekstra denied that the ad was insensitive to Chinese Americans and was meant to focus on Stabenow's voting record.
Obama document In 2012, Davis' firm prepared a 57-page plan (commissioned by billionaire
Joe Ricketts) for a $10 million campaign attempting to stop the re-election of President Obama. It partially recycled points of criticism against Obama from the 2008 presidential campaign, including his relationship with Obama's reverend,
Jeremiah Wright. The proposal, titled,
The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good, was initially approved by the Ricketts' Ending Spending Action Fund. A copy of the proposal document was released by a person unconnected to the ad campaign to
The New York Times, after which it was roundly lambasted in external commentary. Ricketts then disavowed commissioning the plan. Although Davis' agency had gone at least as far as contacting
Larry Elder to join the project, no ads were ever aired. Ricketts issued a statement disavowing the ad campaign hours after it was publicized by
The New York Times. ==References==