HAVE HUEVOS, WILL TRAVEL

I don't make brochures. I don't do ads and I don't sit here and con journalists and twist their arms and take them to lunch. They take me to lunch. I'm the one that's got real news. I got Mecham. I got [Congressional candidate Arnie] Zaler. The list goes on. Gennifer Flowers.

There's a lot of people I can make famous out there. I have no doubt I've made people a lot of money in this business. I know I have."

Perhaps. But Schmidt's boasts, and there are many of them, have a tendency to wither under scrutiny.

Mecham, one of the clients Schmidt most likes to name, says he never actually hired Schmidt to do anything for him. After his impeachment, Mecham says, Schmidt just sort of surfaced and offered to do some work.

Dave's not a bad guy. He's all right. He's trying to promote himself," Mecham says. Anything he did for me was just volunteer work. He was never my agent, so to speak."

Reporters who covered Mecham's futile reelection bid recall Schmidt inexplicably appearing and presenting himself as a spokesman. He was always the oily presence standing off to the side," says columnist MacEachern.

Another client" of whom Schmidt likes to boast is Arnie Zaler, who until recently was running for Congress. Zaler hired him to handle the Congressional campaign, Schmidt says. I'm real proud of that one."

Zaler, however, says Schmidt was a supporter and volunteered to work in the campaign. But he wasn't paid, and, in fact, contributed $1,000, Zaler says.

As for Gennifer Flowers, she and Schmidt are suing each other. Schmidt claims Flowers-the little bitch"-reneged on a contract he had negotiated for her to pose in Penthouse. Flowers is countersuing, saying Schmidt misrepresented himself to her.

Discrepancies such as those help account for Schmidt's low standing among his peers.

David Schmidt is the opposite of everything we want the profession to be. Just dreadful," says Francine Hardaway, who says she first encountered Schmidt when he tried to steal away one of her clients several years ago. He's a sword swallower. But that doesn't help me, or the community, or, probably, his clients."

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