McDonald Davis & Associates is a Milwaukee advertising firm best known for its
political campaign management in behalf of various national and Wisconsin Republican
political candidates. The firm has been known for its pioneering work in behalf of health
care marketing and legal advertising.
The firm was founded in 1963 by Richard E. McDonald and Charles O. Davis and known as
McDonald, Davis & Schmidt Inc. and later as McDonald Davis & Associates. The agency
gained its first prominence when it was selected to coordinate the advertising and publicity
for Warren P. Knowles' 1964 gubernatorial campaign. The strategy which the firm conceived
and the success of their candidate in the face of nationwide Republican reverses earned the
young firm a national reputation for political campaign management. In subsequent years,
they were hired again by Knowles and also by a large number of Republican candidates for
legislative and judicial offices in Wisconsin.
The services which McDonald Davis & Associates offered included design of the overall
campaign strategy; fundraising; creation, production, and distribution of advertising and
publicity; research and issue development; and coordination of volunteer campaigns.
In 1967 McDonald Davis was approached by Richard Nixon, not yet a declared candidate, to
manage his presidential primary campaign. Because of the crucial importance of the Wisconsin
primary in the overall Nixon strategy, McDonald Davis' efforts in behalf of the Nixon
primary victory greatly aided in the restoration of Nixon's status as a national figure and
further enhanced the firm's professional reputation. In 1972 McDonald Davis coordinated
Nixon's Wisconsin campaign, the only local firm to be so employed. McDonald Davis worked in
support of President Gerald Ford in 1976 in Wisconsin and Vice-President George Bush in the
1980 Wisconsin primary and general elections.
Following the 1980 election Charles Davis left the partnership to take up political
consulting on a fulltime basis, although the firm continued to be known as McDonald Davis
& Associates. During the 1980s the firm ceased working as political campaign managers
and turned to the health care field where it rapidly developed a reputation for its
pioneering efforts in marketing.
