Newspaper Article

The first great nose-holding media campaign

Reviewed by Robert Schmuhl, author of "Statecraft and Stagecraft" and an associate professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame

1992

Overview

The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics By Greg Mitchell Random House, 665 pages, $27.50 Since the 1988 presidential campaign, most talk about American electioneering has decried the nose-holding negativism of today's political climate. In \"The Campaign of the Century,\" Greg Mitchell reminds us that the current stench is, in part, the national consequence of what began 58 years ago in that trend-setting state, California. In 1934, the famous author and until-then fringe politician Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor of California. A Socialist candidate for Congress and governor in earlier elections, he tempered his views and took his new party's primary in a landslide.

• Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC