Whitaker and Baxter (original) (raw)

Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter were a husband-and-wife team that started Campaigns, Inc., the first political consulting firm in the United States. Based in California, the firm worked on a variety of political issues, mostly for Republican Party candidates. They both supported conservative ideals. During the 1934 California gubernatorial election, they engineered a smear campaign against socialist Upton Sinclair in an effort to prevent him from unseating incumbent Republican Frank Merriam. Sinclair ultimately lost.