WATCH: Upton Sinclair, Irving Thalberg & The Birth of the Modern Political Campaign | The Nation

 Monday for GRIT TV, Laura Flanders presented a mid-term elections special, with Ari Berman chatting about his Herding Donkeys book, John Nichols discussing third parties, and yours truly on my book The Campaign of the Century about Upton Sinclair and the birth of the modern political campaign.

In 1934, Sinclair, the longtime socialist, had swept the Democratic primary for governor, leading one of the greatest mass movements in US history—End Poverty in California (EPIC). To defeat him, his opponents (for the first time in America) turned to outside advertising, publicity, and media experts. Hollywood also took its first all-out plunge into politics, and the segment with Laura includes excerpts from the first use of the screen to destroy a candidate—faked newsreels ordered by MGM's saintly producer Irving Thalberg. 

Here's my segment below, or read more about the book and watch more of the newsreels here.