Written by Walter Hecht   

Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair by Anthony Arthur. Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle, lived a long and prolific as a socialist, deceased at age 90 in 1968, just days after Nixon was elected. He ran for office several times during his lifetime and lost badly as a socialist. In 1933, he joined the Democratic Party in California and ran for Governor of California in 1934 as a Democrat. He lost narrowly to a mediocre Republican in a three-man race. At that time, California was red state and the establishment resorted to dirty tricks to win. They threw everything they had at him including the kitchen sink. As the author of over 100 books and numerous articles during his lifetime, there was much material to quote and/or take out of context to use against Sinclair. As an object lesson, we can look to the Sinclair experience in California for lessons on how the establishment will react to a Bernie Sanders candidacy.