Uppie No Downer

So let's mark the birth on this date, in 1878,  of Upton Sinclair, famed socialist muckraking novelist (and one of the best-known Americans around the world during his heyday), author of The Jungle and--leftwing candidate in what I called "The Campaign of the Century" in my Random House book of that title, when he led grassroots crusade for governor or California in 1934.  He won the Democratic primary in a landslide--and to defeat him, big business, Hollywood and conservative Dems and GOPers went out and invented the modern political campaign, turning their dirty tricks over to a new breed of "spin doctors" and "political consultants."  And Irving Thalberg created the first "attack ads" for the screen.  To see them, and much more, go here.