These Truths: A History of the United States

by Jill Lepore

CAMPAIGNS, INC., the first political consulting firm in the history of the world, was founded by Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter in California in 1933. Critics called it the Lie Factory. Political consulting, when it started, had one foot in advertising and one foot in journalism. Political consulting is often thought of as a product of the advertising industry, but the reverse is closer to the truth. When modern advertising began, in the 1920s, the industry’s big clients were interested in advancing a political agenda as much as, if not more than, a commercial one. Muckrakers and congressional investigations tended to make Standard Oil look greedy and Du Pont, for making munitions, sinister. Large corporations hired advertising firms to make themselves look better and to advance pro-business legislation.