Craig Shirley

Craig Shirley is the president and CEO of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. Shirley, a long-time Republican PR man, counts as clients the Heritage Foundation, McDonnell Douglas, the Manhattan Institute, National Rifle Association, the National Taxpayers Union, Nuclear Energy Institute, Washington Times Foundation.

According to Joe Conason, some of Shirley's more notable former clients were "Paula Jones, the Clinton sexual harassment accuser who later modeled for Penthouse; and Gary Aldrich, the retired White House FBI agent whose fabricated tales of Clinton motel trysts and pornographic West Wing Christmas trees made his book a bestseller."

Shirley is a board member of the American Conservative Union, which calls itself "the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization."

Profile
In a profile of Shirley's Republican achievements PR Week writes, "As a communications consultant for the Republican National Committee in 1980, Shirley was sent around the country to media-train press secretaries in House and Senate races. Two of his trainees were now-departed Bush spokespeople Torie Clarke and Ari Fleischer."

Shirley created the front group Disabled Americans for Death Tax Repeal, which ran full-page advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times, urging Congress to abolish the federal estate tax.

In 2003, Shirley co-founded Americans for a Better Country (ABC) with GOP strategist and former Ronald Reagan White House political director Frank J. Donatelli.

In November 2005, PR Week noted that Shirley "handled outreach for Americans for Better Justice, a conservative group created to force Miers' withdrawal."

Keene, Shirley & Associates
According to the American Conservative Union Web site, Shirley and David A. Keene "formed Keene, Shirley & Associates, Inc. in early 1987 where Mr. Shirley served as Chief Executive Officer. This five year association saw major accomplishments for Mr. Shirley. In that time he tripled the billings for Keene, Shirley & Associates, ran a major advertising and public relations campaign supporting President Bush and Operation Desert Storm, successfully represented the Embassy of the State of Kuwait and was placed in charge of public relations for an international conference on democracy hosted in Prague by President Vaclav Havel of then Czechoslovakia."

U.S. presidential election 2004
In March 2004, Salon writer Joe Conason claimed, "As strategists in both parties gird for what all expect to be an unusually nasty presidential election, the stage has been set by the revival of a conservative crew that might be called 'the usual suspects' -- including consultants Floyd Brown, Craig Shirley and David Bossie." Conason concluded, "They will do whatever the official Bush campaign can't or won't -- and they have had more than 15 years of target practice."

Conason cannot have been disappointed by subsequent events. Shirley's company did public relations work for the anti-Kerry attack movie Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, and was involved in attempts to squash media coverage of Kitty Kelley's book The Family: The Real Story Of the Bush Dynasty.

U.S. presidential election 2008
In August 2007, Shirley told Cybercast News Service that he "shares" Newt Gingrich's "disdain for the enormous fundraising and bureaucratic operations prevalent in contemporary presidential campaigns.

"'The permanent power structure in Washington is the national media, the K Street lobbyists and the campaign consultants,' said Shirley. 'Politicians are merely vehicles in which to have fun and profit.

"'The candidates come and go. The congressmen come and go. The senators come and go. But the media and K Street, and the campaign consultants are here forever. They take over. They're like cockroaches that come out in the middle of the night, and they take over.'

"Shirley emphasized that the means to break the hold of Washington's 'consultant-ocracy' rests with the American public. 'The consultants are not the gate-keepers to the nomination,' he said. 'The voters are.'"

The Willie Horton ad
In 1988, according to Joe Conason, Craig Shirley was involved in the production of the infamous race-baiting Willie Horton advertisement, which helped finish off Michael Dukakis's campaign.

Conason says that "The Horton ad appeared not as part of the Bush-Quayle campaign, whose strategists shied away from such obvious racism, but under the auspices of a shadowy organization called 'Americans for Bush'. According to testimony filed with the Federal Election Commission, which investigated the financing and planning of the Horton ad in 1990, the ad's actual creators included [Floyd] Brown and Shirley... (FEC commissioners and investigators strongly suspected unlawful collusion between Bush-Quayle and Americans for Bush, but Republican members of the commission quickly killed the probe.)"

Pitches "bin Laden expert"
Following the release of his book on September 21, 2001, "as a public service", Craig Shirley & Associates was "the firm behind the many media appearances for Yossef Bodansky," the author of Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, "lin[ing] up spots for the author on 'Good Morning America,' 'Hardball with Chris Matthews,' 'The O'Reilly Factor,' '48 Hours,' 'Dateline NBC,' and CNN. ... CS&A promoted Bodansky on a pro bono basis because Shirley felt it was important that Americans know about the suspected mastermind behind the terrorist attacks."

Jessica Lynch
In November 2003 O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported, "Shirley and Banister Public Affairs has been selected to promote Harper Collins' Because Each Life is Precious, the account by Iraqi lawyer Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief of Pfc. Jessica Lynch's capture and rescue during the Iraq invasion."

Craig Shirley threatens Public Citizen with public prosecution
According to Public Citizen's Stealth PACs website, "Grassfire failed to comply with Public Citizen's request to view its IRS application for exempt status within the statutorily required 30-day period. Because the organization did not return telephone calls, Public Citizen contacted Shirley & Banister in hopes the firm would help obtain the forms. The e-mail request made its way to Shirley, who copied Public Citizen in a reply to one of his staffers: 'Public Citizen is an ultra-leftist, anti-conservative, anti-Bush organization. If they bother you one more time, please advise me soonest and I will have the lawyers alert the FBI and the Virginia Attorney General's office to investigate [Public Citizen Senior Researcher Taylor] Lincoln and Public Citizen for any and all laws they may have broken and to prosecute both Mr. Lincoln and Public Citizen to the fullest extent of the law.'"

In the event, however, Grassfire.org supplied the relevant documents the next day.

Published works

 * Reagan's Revolution. The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All, Nelson Current, 2004.

Articles by Craig Shirley

 * "25 Years After Reagan: Where Does the GOP Stand?" Human Events, January 5, 2006.
 * "How the GOP Lost Its Way," Washington Post, April 22, 2006.
 * "A Conservative Crackup?" Townhall.com, January 29, 2007.
 * "Advice to the Reagan Lorn," Townhall.com, May 3, 2007.
 * "Bush’s Malaise Moment," Townhall.com, June 2, 2007.

Clients
For a longer list, see Shirley's website.
 * Alexis de Tocqueviille Foundation
 * American Civil Rights Union
 * American Conservative Union
 * Americans for a Better Country
 * Americans for Better Justice
 * Americans for Hope, Growth & Opportunity
 * American Spectator
 * Bruce W. Eberle & Associates
 * Campaign Solutions
 * Carmen Group
 * Carrying Capacity Network
 * CATO Institute
 * Citizens for State Power
 * Citizens United
 * Club for Growth
 * Direct Impact
 * Energy Freedom Alliance
 * Grassfire.org
 * Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
 * National Center for Policy Analysis
 * National Rifle Association
 * National Taxpayers Union
 * Nuclear Energy Institute
 * Small Business Survival Committee
 * United Seniors Association
 * U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Contact information
Shirley & Banister Public Affairs 122 South Patrick Street Alexandria, VA 22314 Telephone: 800 536-5920 Email: info AT sbpublicaffairs.com http://www.sbpublicaffairs.com/

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Americans for Bush
 * Grassfire.org
 * Shirley & Banister Public Affairs
 * Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal

External articles

 * Michael Isikoff, Books: Chapter One: "Uncovering Clinton. A Reporter's Story," New York Times, 1999.
 * Joe Conason, "A Republican Flack's Stealth Attack on Hillary," New York Observer, June 13, 1999.
 * Stephen Goode, "Earning airtime for conservative ideas: public-relations guru Craig Shirley has had a hand in turning bright conservatives into best-selling authors, while still focusing on his love of old-time lobbying - picture profile - Interview," Insight on the News (FindArticles.com), September 30, 2002.

External resources

 * Craig Shirley, NNDB.com.
 * Craig Shirley in the Wikipedia.