“In this profession of leading men’s minds, this is the reason I feel it must be in the hands of the most ethical, principled people—people with real concern for the world around them, for people around them—or else it will erode into the hands of people who have no regard for the world around them. It could be a very, very destructive thing.” 

-- Leone Baxter quoted at the end of Jill Lepore's New Yorker article, “The Lie Factory: How politics became a business,” She and her husband, Clem Whitaker, were the biggest and most inovative political consultants in the middle of the 20th century. Among other things, they helped: defeat Upton Sinclair in his bid to become governor of California in 1934; defeat Gov. Earl Warren's California health care proposal; defeat Harry S. Truman's health care proposal; usher in the era of dirty, media-driven, money-driven politics.

Tags: Clem Whitaker, Leone Baxter, Campaigns, Inc., Jill Lepore, New Yorker, Political Consulting