Profiles

Column: A Pennsylvania Democrat pays to pick his GOP opponent? California’s got the playbook

BY MARK Z. BARABAK

May 19, 2022

The advertisement was catnip to the MAGA faithful. “This is Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano,” said the spot that blazed across Pennsylvania’s television airwaves, touting the candidate’s staunch opposition to abortion and mail-in balloting, and his whole-hog embrace of the stole...

California recall yields winners and losers beyond Newsom and Elder

by David Mark, Senior Editor

March 17, 2022

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom was the winner of the California gubernatorial recall, with voters choosing by a wide margin to keep him in office despite critics’ jabs that he bungled the state’s COVID-19 pandemic response, let homelessness run amok, and had otherwise proved to be a failed...

Hardball Democratic Operative Finds Joy Designing Christian Vestments

By MARK Z. BARABAK

April 5, 2015

Political strategist Garry South in his Marina del Rey home. (Cheryl A. Guerrero / Los Angeles Times) The question was rhetorical. “Can a boxer be a Christian?” Garry South asked. “Because you know what he does: He pounds the crap out of another human being. He draws blood!” South, a famousl...

Gray Davis’ Former Campaign Manager Garry South Donates Campaign Materials to UCLA Library

By JEFF SCOTT

May 3, 2012

Former California Gov. Gray Davis’ former campaign manager Garry South recently donated a collection of the governor’s election campaign documents to the UCLA Library. The UCLA Library recently announced it has added a collection of election campaign documents from a former California ...

Democratic Strategist Garry South Reveals Secrets

By Carla Marinucci

April 26, 2012

Democratic strategist Garry South inside his home office at Santa Monica, CA. Sharp-tongued Democratic strategist Garry South has long specialized in behind-the-scenes skulduggery that has shaped decades of major political races in California – and the fortunes of many candidates. Now, like a mag...

Campaign aides steal show in governor’s race

October 5, 2009

California’s 2010 governor’s race is becoming a war of words, complete with fireworks, YouTube videos and comic relief – but it is the high-priced campaign consultants, not the candidates, who are frequently stealing the show. Months before the first ballots will be cast –...

Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Hires Top Consultant

by DAVID MARK

July 20, 2005

Controller Steve Westly has emboldened his campaign for the California governorship in 2006 by hiring a top Democratic political consultant. The former eBay executive appointed veteran Democratic strategist Garry South as senior adviser, shaking up a contest that until recently had seemed like GOP G...

Politics as Unusual

by JOAN MELCHER

October 6, 2003

Garry South has a gift for gab, no doubt about it. Along with many other gifts, not least among them astonishing recall. At the end of a five-hour interview, I find my jaw sagging, perhaps from exhaustion, but also because he has just rattled off the names of all the state officeholders in Montana i...

Davis’ Closest Political Aide Goes National

Mark Z. Barabak, Times Staff Writer

June 6, 2003

Garry South, the pugnacious political strategist who masterminded Gray Davis’ last three election victories, is signing on as a senior campaign advisor to Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph I. Lieberman. South’s appointment, to be announced today in Washington, comes as Davis faces the threa...

Davis Has A Fighter In His Corner

Sandy Kleffman, Times Staff Writer

September 3, 2002

Garry South leans forward in his chair, smiles slyly and steals a line from a Grateful Dead song: “What a long, strange trip this has been.” South, Gov. Gray Davis’ senior political adviser, close confidant and political mastermind, is referring to this year’s gubernatorial race. But he coul...

Southern Strategy: Meet Garry South, the Man Behind California’s GOP-Primary Upset — and a Player in the 2004 Campaign

Howard Fineman

March 18, 2002

For Karl Rove, California is a forbidding place, full of hostile Democrats. Even so, the White House’s political mastermind thought he’d found a way to establish a Republican beachhead in the Golden State: back Richard Riordan, the popular former mayor of Los Angeles, for governor against Gray D...

Davis’ Brash Tactician Grabs National Notice

Robin Fields, Times Staff Writer

March 6, 2002

Garry South leans back in his oversized leather desk chair, one lanky arm folded behind his head, his lips curling in satisfaction. Each day brings him more claps on the shoulder, handshakes and breathless testaments to his brilliance as California’s political chess master of the moment. For the l...

Power Politics: Strategist for Gov. Davis Toughens Energy Policy

John Harwood and Mitchell Benson

June 19, 2001

Garry South is no expert on energy policy. But he understands voters, and a few weeks ago he dropped off a piece of intelligence at Gov. Gray Davis’s condominium that helped change California’s response to the crisis over electricity. Mr. South, the governor’s top political strategist, gave Mr...

PUBLIC LIVES: A Carville of California Politics Plans to Deliver for Gore

Todd S. Purdum

February 12, 2000

In 1991, Garry South arrived here with no job, few contacts and $16,000 from cashing out his pension after three years as communications director for the embattled Democratic governor of Ohio, Richard F. Celeste. To keep busy, he freelanced features for The Glendale News-Press, a local weekly. At $6...

Garry South: The Man Davis Relied On To Get Elected

Amy Chance

February 15, 1999

It was late August, just when the California gubernatorial campaign was preparing to move into high gear, and then-Lt. Gov. Gray Davis was a little unnerved. His campaign manager, Garry South, had flown back home to Montana to take his parents to Yellowstone National Park. There, South had collapsed...

A Bright Kind of Missionary

By DUANE W. BOWLER, Editor, The Gazette

May 20, 1973

A young man from Miles City who once attended Eastern Montana College may be the best thing that has happened to the University of Montana in quite some time. You’d like to meet Garry South, the new president of the Associated Students of the University of Montana. And he’d like to meet ...