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.