American political consulting organization
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.
The couple developed strategies and tactics - such as media advertisement buys and direct-mail campaigns - that are still widely used in today's campaigns. Their public relations work not only revolutionized politics in the modern era, but also deeply impacted political issues that remain relevant today.
Backgrounds.
Clem Whitaker.
Clement Sherman Whitaker was born in Tempe, Arizona, on May 1, 1899, the son of a Baptist minister. He was raised in Willits, California, where he submitted his first news story, for the "Willits News", at age 13. He began working for the "Sacramento Union" at age 18.
Following a brief stint in the Army during World War I, Whitaker became city editor for the Union before moving to the Sacramento Examiner at age 21. He was a political writer for the Examiner until 1921, when he founded the Capitol News Bureau. His company disseminated political news to eighty newspapers statewide. While living in Sacramento, he married Harriet Reynolds. The couple had four children: Clem Jr., Milton, Patricia and Burdett.
Clem Whitaker was sued for divorce on July 25, 1936. Harriet Whitaker charged him with extreme cruelty.
Leone Baxter.
Leone Baxter was born Leone J. Smith in Kelso, Washington, on November 20, 1906, the third child of Leon W. and Grace Pearl (Hayes) Smith. According to the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, her father was a farmer from Wisconsin. Her mother's family was from New York. Leone briefly wrote for the Portland Oregonian. 
In June 1925, Leone was issued a marriage license for herself and Alex D. Baxter in Tacoma. She worked as a secretary for the Chamber of Commerce in Redding, California. There she promoted a water carnival for the Chamber of Commerce. She became the Chamber manager in 1929. 
Around 1929 she and her husband moved to Sacramento. Leone Baxter accepted the position of office manager of the State Water Plan Association in Sacramento in October 1933. 
Alex D. Baxter tragically lost his life in a car accident on December 14, 1933, on Hoopa Road near Willow Creek, California. He had just visited Leone in Sacramento and was on his way back to work in Humboldt County when his vehicle veered off the road and fell 100 feet to the riverbed below.
Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker were issued a marriage license on April 11, 1938 while both of them lived in San Francisco. They made their first home in Oakland California.
Leone (Smith) Baxter-Whitaker died on March 13, 2001.
Origin of the firm.
Lobbying.
After selling his business to United Press in 1930, a barber friend whose trade association was having trouble lobbying the state legislature caught Whitaker's attention. For $4,000, Whitaker organized the barbers into a potent lobbying group, leading to legislation creating the State Board of Barber Examiners.
In 1933, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&amp;E) lobbied to place Proposition 1 on the ballot for California's December 1933 special election. This measure was aimed at striking down recent legislation that would establish the Central Valley Project (CVP). The CVP was to be the nation's largest water irrigation project, supported by the progressivists who believed in non-privatized power. While PG&amp;E wanted to pass Proposition 1 to defeat the CVP, lawyer Sheridan Downey was forming a team to help defeat Proposition 1.
Becoming Campaigns, Inc..
Whitaker's lobbying efforts for the barbers' trade union attracted Downey, who hired him to help on the campaign. Knowing that the nearby City of Redding would also have economic interests in protecting the Central Valley Project, Downey recruited Baxter, the city's Chamber of Commerce manager, to help with his undertaking. Downey paired Whitaker and Baxter together on the project. Whitaker and Baxter's efforts helped defeat the measure by 33,000 votes.
This partnership led to the formation of their campaign management firm, Campaigns, Inc., in 1933. In 1935, Whitaker separated from his then wife, Harriet Reynolds. In 1938, after being in business together for five years, Whitaker and Baxter married. Their business, called Campaigns Inc., was not formally incorporated until 1950, under the name Whitaker &amp; Baxter, Inc. The business became known as the first public relations firm in the country dedicated solely to politics.
Over the next 25 years, the firm handled over 75 campaigns and initiatives, spanning topics such as taxation and finance, pensions, and legislative reapportionment, as well as teacher's salaries and railroad crew issues. Clients who utilized Campaigns, Inc. were also entitled to many of the other enterprises that Whitaker and Baxter pursued, including the Clem Whitaker Advertising Agency, Whitaker-Baxter Public Relations, and an editorial and news syndicate that sent prepared materials to publishers throughout California.
Whitaker and Baxter eventually named Whitaker's son, Clem, Jr. and James J. Dorais as junior partners in the firm. These four formed the core staff, along with several other staff members. In 1959, when Clem, Sr.'s health began to plague him in 1959, and Whitaker and Baxter sold the firm to Clem, Jr., James Dorais, and Newton Stearns. The two original founders then formed Whitaker and Baxter International, after which Whitaker died in 1961 and from which Baxter retired in the early 1980s. Clem, Jr. wrote in a letter on October 31, 1991, "Years ago when I assumed management of Whitaker and Baxter we phased out of the campaign management business. Our last candidate campaign was the election of Senator Robert Griffin over Governor Mennen "Soapy" Williams in Michigan in 1966. We ceased ballot issue campaigns in 1973." Whitaker and Baxter remained a consulting firm in the area of public affairs representing energy clients, maintaining offices in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. as a public affairs lobbying group.
Career highlights.
George Hatfield for lieutenant governor.
Campaigns Inc. was retained for their first official political campaign in 1934. George Hatfield, a prominent Republican who served as U.S. Attorney for California's Northern District, was running for Lieutenant Governor of California against Democrat Sheridan Downey, who had first introduced the pair of political consultants. For Hatfield's election, Whitaker &amp; Baxter's company records from this campaign included speeches and advertisements they produced. They also analyzed polling data to determine if their message was affecting voters. Ultimately, Hatfield would go on to win the election.
Frank Merriam for Governor.
In 1934, Whitaker &amp; Baxter were hired by the client who would ultimately put them on the map. Frank Merriam, California's former lieutenant governor who had been volleyed to the gubernatorial seat following the mid-term death of James Rolph, was running for re-election as governor. Merriam, who assumed the governor's office in June 1934, had immediately faced a union crisis. The International Longshoremen's Association was striking, effectively shutting down the ports in San Francisco. When police attempted to escort temporary workers to the docks, they became engaged in skirmishes with the strikers. Fearing political ruin if he sent the Guard in to subdue the strikers, Merriam is rumored to have worked a deal with state Republicans to the party's gubernatorial nominee in exchange for the deployment. Ultimately, both federal and state troops were able to handle the situation, and Merriam was able to blame the ordeal on the political Left.
Merriam's main opponent in the gubernatorial election would be Upton Sinclair, author of "The Jungle". A known Socialist, Sinclair had been able to win a surprise victory in the primary due to his EPIC Project, which stood for "End Poverty in California." The EPIC plan included government work programs and cooperatives. When Whitaker and Baxter were hired, they were told explicitly their main responsibility was, "Keep [Sinclair] from becoming Governor". This agenda is especially significant because of the subsequent, direct-offensive strategy employed by Campaigns, Inc. was unheard of at the time. 
In their first major election, Whitaker and Baxter were able to lead Merriam to a victory over Sinclair, 48% to 37%, with a third-party candidate taking 13%. Arthur Schlesinger called this the first all out public relations Blitzkrieg in American Politics, while Sidney Blumenthal considered it a landmark in the development of the political consultant. For the time, their work was groundbreaking. However, the tactics they used to attack Sinclair are still a widely used campaign strategy today.
Strategies against Sinclair.
Prior to the election, Sinclair was a renowned writer. "I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty" was a work of Sinclair's set in the future. The basic scenario of the book was that Sinclair had been elected governor, and his EPIC plan had succeeded in one-hundred percent employment for California. However, his other writings did not help him achieve these lofty goals. Using oppositional research tactics, Whitaker and Baxter pored through all of Sinclair's writings, finding quotes that they could use against him. The Los Angeles Times began putting quotes from Sinclair on their front page six weeks before the election. Sinclair ultimately attributed his loss to Whitaker &amp; Baxter, who were named only as "The Lie Factory" in his post-election book, "I, Candidate for Governor, and How I Got Licked."
For their part, Whitaker and Baxter's oppositional research was not entirely factual. The following quote, which appeared in the L.A. Times reflecting Sinclair's opinion on marriage, was taken from a fictional character's dialogue in Sinclair's book "Love's Pilgrimage":
The sanctity of marriage. ... I have had such a belief ... I have it no longer."
However, Whitaker believed that any quotes which could be attributed to his campaign were fair to use against him. In short, Whitaker believe Upton was beaten because he had written books.
California League Against Sinclairism.
Aside from oppositional research, Whitaker and Baxter used a variety of other tactics against Sinclair. They decided to organize a bipartisan front group known as the California League Against Sinclairism. Whitaker and Baxter used this group to disseminate information regarding Sinclair's "socialist agenda."
Media.
Additionally, media was a key part of the Whitaker and Baxter campaign strategy. They believed in the extensive scripting of candidates to keep them on message in the media, rather than allowing ragtag bands of volunteers to handle branding their candidate. They pursued earned media, meaning that they encourage candidates like Merriam to create news rather than simply sending in press releases. The team would go so far as to trade paid advertising for editorial space. However, if news could not be legitimately created, Whitaker and Baxter believed in creating the perception of news. Whitaker and Baxter teamed up with media tycoon Louis B. Mayer to promote Frank Merriam in an advertisement. The ad was meant to look like the newsreels of the day, although the true purpose is to create the perception that people who support Sinclar are pro-Communism and Socialism. Whitaker and Baxter considered this type of advertisement to be effective as it was often perceived as earned media.
Healthcare reform.
During his New Deal era, Franklin Roosevelt called for major healthcare reform in the form of government-subsidized medicine. In 1945, President Harry Truman took up this fight, calling on Congress to overhaul the country's healthcare system. The American Medical Association began to lobby against the president's proposal. In 1949, they retained Whitaker &amp; Baxter to help them with their efforts. The AMA paid Whitaker &amp; Baxter $350,000 to defeat Truman's healthcare plan. In their usual style, Whitaker &amp; Baxter began an all out media war against the healthcare plan, distributing over 100 million pieces of literature. In just two weeks of the campaign, Whitaker &amp; Baxter was given a $100,000 retainer and over $1 million to spend on advertising, which is a $ retainer and $ budget in today's dollars. They spent $1.1 million in advertising on behalf of the AMA. As part of their messaging, they began calling the president's healthcare plan "socialized medicine," ushering in the same negative connotations and allusions to communism that they had brought upon Sinclair.
Branding reform.
President Truman was quick to defend his plan. The plan included federal funding to attract doctors to rural areas, give funding to rural areas to build new hospitals, federal standards for hospitals and health centers to be implemented by a board of doctors and public officials, and the creation of a national health insurance fund