No. 94: Capitol Weekly’s Top 100

94. McNally-Temple

The firm of McNally Temple – the strategic combine of Ray McNally and Richard Temple – is traditionally a GOP-leaning consultancy, so one would think times would get tougher as the state turns deeper and deeper blue. But they’re still here, definitely. McNally, the president and creative director, founded the firm in 1980 and Temple joined in 1992. Clients have included Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Gov. Pete Wilson, Steve Poizner, along with the state Chamber of Commerce and the California Republican Party. The mustached McNally can boast of a perhaps more exotic background than many political types. He studied playwriting at UC Davis and has done communications training for candidates and political parties in Nigeria, Mongolia, Iraq, Egypt, Mexico, Malaysia and Russia. Temple, who, rumor has it, has been shorn of his ’stache, is a fellow UC Davis graduate and worked in the California Legislature for more than a decade as a political director and caucus chief of staff.

Updated Aug. 21, 2019