Clinton Reilly Obit

Clinton Reilly

1947 - 2026 

He was not on the list.

Clinton Reilly

01/13/1947 - 07/18/2026

Clint Reilly - a Bay Area milkman's eldest son who left a Roman Catholic seminary three years short of the priesthood, poured his zeal into politics, and went on to pioneer the modern American campaign - died surrounded by family on July 18 in San Francisco. He was 79.

Mr. Reilly launched a generation of California leaders, and then improbably reinvented himself as one of San Francisco's foremost civic patrons, philanthropists and newspaper owners.

Yet, the seminary never entirely released him.

Mr. Reilly entered at 14 and spent nine years studying for the priesthood before leaving in 1969. He often explained afterward that he had wanted to "help make history, not simply bless it." But the departure proved less a break than a translation. In Catholicism, he liked to say, the priest is not the leader but the facilitator of leaders. Across more than five decades, he carried that vocation into politics, business, philanthropy and journalism, using campaigns, buildings, lawsuits, newspapers and scholarships in pursuit of what he called the greatest act of charity: helping to build a just society.

His first career transformed American politics.

In 1982, he founded Clinton Reilly Campaigns, building what The New York Times called the nation's most successful political consulting firm outside Washington. His clients included Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and Richard Riordan. The firm's innovations, from sophisticated voter targeting to integrated campaign strategy, became standard practice throughout the industry.

At the height of his success, he walked away.

In 1995, at 48, he married Janet Koewler, a journalist and public relations executive he had met through the Riordan campaign, and purchased the landmark Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco's Financial District. Around it, he assembled a remarkable civic enterprise: historic buildings, event venues, restaurants, publications, the Nob Hill Gazette and eventually the San Francisco Examiner.

The newspaper represented unfinished business.

When Hearst sought to consolidate newspaper ownership in the Bay Area in 2000, Mr. Reilly sued in federal court to preserve media competition. He lost the case but forced testimony that exposed troubling conduct surrounding the sale and helped ensure the Examiner survived. Six years later, he sued again over another proposed newspaper consolidation, prevailing in a settlement that unwound the arrangement.

In 2021, two decades after first going to court to save it, he purchased the San Francisco Examiner. The newspaper whose fate he had once fought for as a citizen now belonged to him.

Those who knew only his public victories often missed the harder edges of his life. The defining event of his childhood was loss.

Born in Oakland on Jan. 13, 1947, Mr. Reilly was the eldest of ten children of Joseph and Bess Reilly. He came from a family with deep San Francisco roots: His father and grandfather were native San Franciscans. His father delivered milk for Berkeley Farms, while his mother spent nearly a quarter century working concessions at the Oakland Coliseum. The family had little money but abundant affection.

When Clint was 12, his beloved younger sister Jill died of a brain tumor. Soon afterward, he announced he would become a priest. Forty years later, he gave his first daughter her name.

The seminary shaped him intellectually as well as spiritually. Under Monsignor Eugene Boyle, the legendary social-justice priest who remained his lifelong mentor, he immersed himself in the civil-rights movement and the fight against poverty before leaving three years short of ordination.

That Christmas he wrote his parents a seven-page letter describing himself as "a restless man," promising to exhaust himself in service to others and to earn enough money to make that service possible.

He spent the next half century keeping that promise.

His second act was defined less by business success than by philanthropy.

As the financial crisis engulfed San Francisco, he and Janet each founded organizations that reflected their shared belief in opportunity. She created Clinic by the Bay, providing free medical care to the working uninsured. He founded Bay Scholars, which grew from ten scholarships into one of the region's largest privately funded scholarship programs, helping hundreds of students attend rigorous Catholic high schools and become, in many cases, the first in their families to graduate from college.

He read every scholarship application himself.

His generosity reached throughout the city: Catholic Charities, SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum, Presidio Tunnel Tops, UC Berkeley's Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, and dozens of civic institutions. Time and again, when others doubted San Francisco's future, Mr. Reilly doubled down on the city.

His greatest investment was always in its people.

In addition to his wife Janet, he is survived by their daughters, Jill and Ava Reilly; his mother, Bess Reilly; his siblings; and numerous nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held at St. Ignatius Parish, 650 Parker Avenue in San Francisco, on Monday, August 3rd at 10:00 am. Family and friends are invited to attend and celebrate a life spent in service to San Francisco.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Clint's name can be made to Bay Scholars or Clinic by the Bay.