Doug Watts

Doug Watts
Basic facts
Organization:	Urban Media Group
Role:	Founder
Location:	New York, N.Y.
Affiliation:	Republican
Education:	University of Arizona
Website:	Official website
Prior Experience •George Deukmejian 1982 Calif. Gov. •Ronald Reagan 1984 presidential •Ben Carson 2016 presidential •National executive director, Committee for American Sovereignty

Doug Watts is the founder of the Urban Media Group, a communications company. He was the national executive director of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a super PAC that supported Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Watts was the communications director for Ben Carson's 2016 presidential campaign but resigned his position in December 2015 over differences with Carson's business manager, Armstrong Williams.

He previously worked as an advertising director for Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign and has been involved in private communications firms since 1976.

Career

Early consulting

In 1976, Watts and Sal Russo began their own consulting business, when Watts was 25 years old. The two worked on a number of agricultural issues and managed the primary campaign of Ken Maddy (R) for governor of California. They consulted on a number of initiative campaigns, including advertising for Proposition 4 in 1979 and against Proposition 9, the Peripheral Canal Act, in 1982.

For the Peripheral Canal Act initiative, Watts and Russo worked to target messages to different constituencies across the state. In their book The King of California, Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman described the ad campaign: "The heart of the Russo and Watts strategy was to tailor five different messages for five different television markets, using 'local heroes'—popular politicians—to drive home these sundry points."

George Deukmejian gubernatorial campaign, 1982

Watts' more high profile political involvement began in 1982 when he worked as a communications director for California Governor George Deukmejian (R). Watts worked with Russo to coordinate television ads during the final months of the campaign. In Deukmejian's administration, Watts served as the director of public affairs. He stayed with Deukmejian until 1984 when he left to rejoin the consulting business he began with Russo in 1976. According to the Los Angeles Times, Watts left the Deukmejian administration to focus on campaigning. He told the paper, "I personally was getting very antsy (working inside government). I just really couldn't hack government anymore, as opposed to campaigns and private business."

Later consulting

In 1984, Watts joined the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan (R) as the advertising director. He was involved in a "30-minute, lushly filmed, sentimental campaign movie done for Reagan in 1984 and shown at the Republican Convention in Dallas," according to the Los Angeles Times. The paper also reported, "He managed the so-called Tuesday Team, overseeing a collection of superstars from the ranks of commercial advertising. It was Watts' duty to keep the spots politically on track, and while his competitors debate how big a role he played in the innovative television campaign, it remains the glossiest entry on his resume."

Much of his work in consulting has come in the state of California, where Watts has worked on both electoral campaigns and issue campaigns related to ballot measures. In 1986, Watts and Russo were hired to run an advertising campaign against California Proposition 65, a measure that placed restrictions on toxic discharges into drinking water and required that people be notified who were exposed to toxins. According to the Los Angeles Times, Watts developed a message that focused on government exemptions to the proposal. The paper described the firm's strategy sessions and how the message evolved:

“

A decision had been reached, slowly, subtly, and without any dramatic pronouncement. From now on, Proposition 65 was not only full of exemptions. It was also a fraud. Watts wasted little time adapting. One of his more obvious qualities is a courage of conviction--and a readiness to forsake conviction when confronted with better evidence. ... But criticism of the initiative as a fraud, or as a potential feast for 'bounty hunter' attorneys, conceivably fell within the rhetorical shadow of 'more safety, not less.'

”

Watts' experience in the private communications sector includes work for Gannett Outdoor, ClearChannel, and Urban Media Group, where he is the president.

Presidential election, 2016

Ben Carson campaign

See also:Ben Carson presidential campaign, 2016

On March 3, 2015, Watts joined Carson's 2016 presidential campaign as communications director "overseeing media, advertising and social media activities." Of Carson, Watts told the San Francisco Chronicle, "He’s not over the top, like somebody we’re accustomed to. ... He’s a civil person, a quiet person, and he’s very smart."

On December 31, 2015, Watts and Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett resigned their positions with the campaign. According to an NBC piece, "[a] source familiar with the internal workings of the campaign blamed acrimony within the campaign on Carson's close confidante, Armstrong Williams."

Foreign policy comments

According to The New York Times, two of Ben Carson’s foreign policy advisors said he has “struggled to master the intricacies of the Middle East and national security and that intense tutoring was having little effect.” Duane R. Clarridge, one of Carson’s advisors, said, “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.”

In response to the article in The New York Times, Watts wrote in an email: "Mr. Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of the daily, not weekly briefings, that Dr. Carson receives on important national security matters from former military and State Department officials. He is coming to the end of a long career of serving our country. Mr. Clarridge's input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is clearly not one of Dr. Carson's top advisors. For the New York Times to take advantage of an elderly gentleman and use him as their foil in this story is an affront to good journalistic practices."

The Committee for American Sovereignty

See also: Committee for American Sovereignty

In May 2016, Watts announced that he and a number of other Republican strategists started the super PAC the Committee for American Sovereignty, an independent expenditure group supporting the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. Watts serves as the group's national executive director and spokesperson. In a press release, he announced that the group's aim was to increase fundraising for the candidate, saying, "With the recent announcement that a pro-Hillary Clinton’s super PAC has already booked over $90 million in ad time in just seven states in June, it is clear we need to ramp up major donor fund-raising efforts, unify Republicans, and take on the Clinton Machine."

According to The Hill, the super PAC intended to raise $20 million by the Republican National Convention and would avoid television advertising to avoid conflicts with another pro-Trump super PAC, Great America PAC. The Los Angeles Times reported that former California State Senator Tony Strickland (R), California's Republican National Committeeman Shawn Steel, and former state party leaders Frank Visco and Marcelino Valdez were all advising the group. Other advisors, according to The Associated Press, include Nicholas Ribis, a former chairman of Trump Hotel, Casino and Resorts, as well as Kenneth Abramowitz, a Republican Party mega donor.

See also

• Ben Carson presidential campaign, 2016
• Committee for American Sovereignty

External links

• Urban Media Group, LLC
• Doug Watts on Twitter