For an entire generation of Americans, Upton Sinclair will be known — if he is known at all — as the guy who wrote the book that was the basis for the movie “There Will Be Blood”.

To an earlier generation, he was known as the author of muckraking books such as “The Jungle”.
Political historians will known Sinclair as one of the most famous members of the American Socialist Party who made history in 1934 when, running as a Democrat he very nearly won election as governor of California.
In the midst of the Great Depression, Sinclair launched his “End Poverty in California” campaign which won nearly 900,000 votes and was stopped only by a hysterical right-wing campaign which claimed his victory would lead to “Communism”.
A key lesson from Sinclair’s experience was that by running as a Socialist he’d earned only a fraction of the votes he got running as a Democrat. It was a lesson that it took the American Socialist Party a full generation to learn. Under the leadership of Michael Harrington, the Socialist Party finally took the decision to work inside the Democratic Party in 1968.
Why the history lesson?
Because I get the feeling sometimes that the John Edwards campaign is our generation’s version of the historic 1934 EPIC movement.
There have been politicians, even candidates for President, who have campaigned on anti-corporate platforms. The 2000 Nader campaign was a recent example of this. By staying outside the Democratic Party, Nader guaranteed that he’d be seen by many as a spoiler. And of course he didn’t have the remotest chance of winning the White House.
Eight years later, Edwards is running on a campaign not radically different from that of Nader or Sinclair. He’s made ending poverty a personal crusade. He’s taken on corporate power and corporate dominance of Washington in a way that only outsiders have done in the past.
And he’s done it while maintaining a strong candidacy in the mainstream of Democratic politics, with an excellent performance in one state and perhaps better ones to follow.
Upton Sinclair didn’t succeed with his EPIC campaign, and John Edwards may not succeed either. But they have pushed the agenda to the left, and raised the issues other candidates would not.