The First Attack Ads on the Screen: Courtesy Irving Thalberg!

The election season uproar over negative campaign ads will return next year for sure.  But it may surprise most people to learn that the first attack ads on the screen date back well before TVs were in nay homes.  Yes, it happened in 1934,  with faux newsreels produced by MGM's saintly Irving Thalberg to defeat the Democratic nominee for governor of California--none other than ex-socialist writer Upton Sinclair (who swept the primary on August 28) as detailed in my award-winning book "The Campaign of the Century" and in brief video below: