“The scuttling of [CA Gov. Earl Warren‘s] health insurance plan was a confirmation for Warren of the nature of the political process, in which advocates of programs based on humanity and common sense were pitted against selfish, vindictive special interests.”

— Earl Warren’s biographer, G. Edmund White, on the defeat of the California governor’s proposed 1945 health care legislation, which was demonized by the political consulting firm, Campaigns, Inc. Previously, in 1942, Campaigns, Inc. had helped elect Warren. The quotes above and below appear in Jill Lepore's excellent New Yorker article, “The Lie Factory: How politics became a business.”

“In 1942, the problem with Earl Warren was that he was grim. Baxter said that, to get women to vote for him, he and his wife had to agree to have a picture of their family taken, and publicized. Warren’s wife, Nina, objected. ‘She didn’t want to exploit her family,’ Baxter said. ‘But we knew that he had to get that family.’ They took a picture—Earl, Nina, and their six children. They look like the Von Trapp Family Singers. Campaigns, Inc., distributed three million copies.”