Before There Was Bernie Sanders...

Before Bernie Sanders There Was…

Upton Sinclair preceded Bernie Sanders. A Socialist running as a Democrat, Sinclair campaigned for Governor of California in 1934, urging an end to poverty. (FDR didn’t endorse him, claiming that he was too radical.) Sinclair’s enemies did their damndest to defeat him...and they did, despite his tremendous popularity. Here is what he wrote years later, explaining why he lost the election (the term "Socialist," he thought, was his undoing):

“The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC [End Poverty in California]. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie....”

     Sinclair (1878-1968) was an amazing man. Wrote almost 100 books (including The Jungle along with the Lanny Budd series), won a Pulitzer Prize , started an ACLU in California, started a utopian colony (Helicon Hall) in Englewood, NJ, ran for various offices. His campaign terrified the 1%, and they did everything to defeat him... which they did. Died in Bound Brook, NJ. I once wrote a newspaper story about Helicon Hall, and he mailed me a book he had written, with his autograph--which I have treasured!

      From Wikipedia: “EPIC faced major opposition by the Republican Party and major media figures. Opponents of EPIC “organized the most lavish and creative dirty-tricks campaign ever seen—one that was to become a landmark in American politics” involving “turning over a major campaign to outside advertising, publicity, media and fundraising consultants for the first time.”

       Notable among these opponents were the heads of the major movie studios in Hollywood. This was largely due to Sinclair’s proposal to hand over idle movie studio lots to unemployed film workers to make movies of their own. In reaction, the studio heads threatened to move film operations to Florida, and deducted money from employee’s paychecks to give directly to the campaign of Sinclair’s Republican opponent for Governor, Frank Merriam.

       In addition, two of the state’s most influential media moguls, William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, used their papers to solely cover Merriam’s campaign and to attack Sinclair.

       In the face of this coordinated opposition, and without the backing of Roosevelt, Sinclair began trailing Merriam in the polls. On November 6, 1934, Merriam defeated Sinclair with 1,138,629 (48.9%) to Sinclair’s 879,537 (37.8%). Despite his defeat, Sinclair’s vote total was the twice as large as the vote total of any Democratic candidate in California history to that point. In addition, two dozen candidates running on the EPIC platform were elected to the state legislature.”