by Alan Huffman
Political research is about searching for evidence of both hypocrisy and nobility on front porches, in smoky conference rooms, and in courthouses, bars, deer camps and roadside cafes. It can be grueling, corrosive, satisfying and entertaining by turns. It comes in cycles, gearing up in spring, usually starting with a phone call. From that point on, all bets are off. Whether or not the pollsters end up using our findings to quiz people who still have landlines, Michael and I are out there, tapping the source, piecing together the odd and meaningful political story of America.
After we’ve completed our research we submit a report to beleaguered campaign staffers who typically stay on the phone all day, subsisting on coffee and fast food, and who, during the rush of the season, have more interest than time. Campaign people are generally hard to impress, though the fact that a gun appears as a prop in our subsequent report is remarked on, favorably in some quarters, because it indicates that we left no stone unturned.
Once the campaigns digest our reports, we undertake whatever follow-up research they deem necessary. The results, when significant, are then introduced into the fray, forming the basis for poll questions, news conferences, direct mail pieces or TV ads. Whether or not the information gains traction is beyond anyone’s control because the electorate—you, your family, your friends and enemies—can be a fickle bunch. There’s also the question of the efficacy of the delivery. Either way, we rarely hear what happens after we leave town.
Much of our work is straightforward research, but we do occasionally find ourselves in the middle of an outsized drama that’s being staged at a small, out-of-the-way venue, as is the case here, and likewise during a Mississippi race, where we ended up being tailed for a day and a night by three good ol’ boys in a rusty pickup truck. The appearance of the good ol’ boys—who looked like extras from Mississippi Burning—offered a reminder that when you’re in the business of looking for trouble, trouble sometimes comes looking for you.
The guys in the pickup made their cameo after we stumbled upon documents that hinted at questionable activities by another opposing candidate, for whom, presumably, they worked. We unearthed the incriminating records at a county courthouse set in the center of a stark, small-town square where most of the employees were clearly on the side of the guy we were going after—a familiar scenario. It’s not unusual for us to have obstacles thrown in our path, and we can usually detect a hostile dynamic right away. We saunter up to the counter, ask for the voting history of a local power figure, and, based on the reaction we get, may as well have asked, “How long after a person dies can you successfully harvest their organs, bearing in mind that there’s no air-conditioning in the cabin?” Yet for every roomful of uncooperative clerks there’s almost always one who takes the opposing view, who has perhaps been on the losing end of the power figure’s activities or who, for whatever reason, resents him. We always keep an eye out for this person, just in case.
In the Mississippi race, we sized up the situation immediately. The moment we requested the candidate’s property tax payment history, everyone in the office looked up. One of the clerks rose from her desk, grabbed a notepad, glared at us and purposefully exited the building. I watched through the window as she strode to our car and wrote down the tag number. Another clerk, meanwhile, demanded to know, “Who are you with?”
Clerks such as these, under the misguided impression that they work for elected officials rather than the taxpayers, can come up with all sorts of ruses and bureaucratic barriers to fend off public scrutiny. This being a small courthouse where the candidate clearly held sway, his minions were unusually bold. Fortunately, this also meant that the process of hiding potentially incriminating records had been sloppy. The minions had grown complacent. Probing the deed books on our own we found that the candidate had, on more than one occasion, bought land with another man, both of whose names appeared on the original deed of sale. But he had sold the property by himself, so that only his name appeared on the deed transfer. The deed irregularity could have been innocent enough—some kind of verbal agreement, perhaps—but it also could have been a method for transferring money to the candidate without accountability. We made copies of everything under the watchful eyes of the clerks, at least one of which, using history as an indicator, was secretly cheering us on.
Later, as we were driving to the interstate hotel near the Alabama state line where we planned to spend the night, I began receiving strange calls on my cell. At first no one spoke. Then a stranger, without identifying himself, asked where we were and hung up when I refused to say. I still don’t know how they got my cell number, but soon after, Michael’s then-wife called to say that someone who refused to identify himself had phoned their home to ask where we were staying that night, saying he was working with us, which made her suspicious. We generally work alone, and anyone associated with one of our campaigns invariably knows how to reach us. All of which served to put us on guard. It is moments like these that make us tolerant of a stranger bringing a gun to an interview. Sometimes it’s not just paranoia.
I tend to be pretty observant, but I was downright vigilant as we neared our hotel. I took note of the extras from Mississippi Burning when I saw them sitting behind us at a traffic light, and observed that they were still behind us when we turned on to the frontage road at the next intersection. As we checked into the Hampton Inn they entered the parking lot and backed their truck into a spot facing the registration desk. I made a point of letting them see me see them as we headed to our rooms, but they didn’t seem to care. When we went to dinner they were still out there, in the parking lot, and they followed us to the restaurant. When we emerged from the restaurant, they were parked under a streetlight, staring in our direction, and they proceeded to follow us back to the hotel. It occurred to me that their tailing skills were subpar, unless they’d been told to be obvious about it, in hopes of scaring us off. I also wondered, “All of this over some questionable land sales?” Given their level of commitment, it seemed likely that our suspicions were justified, and that there could be more going on. When some of these guys run for office, it’s like they wake up one day and think, “Hey, there’s some power over there, waiting to be tapped—my own little honey hole.” They don’t seem to grasp that public power is subject to public scrutiny—in this country, at least. We want to say, “Hey, look over here. We see you!” The Mississippi Burning guys served only to reinforce the feeling that we were on the right track.
The next morning, as we were preparing to depart our hotel, I noticed that the good ol’ boys were gone. Rather than feel relieved, I was more wary. I wondered what had become of them. Then I had an idea. It didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that they could have planted something—a tracking device or, I don’t know, a bomb?—under the hood of our car. I know it sounds paranoid, and maybe it was, but one thing we’ve learned is that there’s always someone who wants to blow someone else up, literally or figuratively. Whether they follow through has to do with the person’s attractiveness as a target, the availability of a suitable delivery mechanism and proximity.
As Michael was about to start the engine I told him to wait, to pop the hood. Not being a morning person, he gave me a withering look.
“What? So you can look for a bomb?” He started laughing, mocking me. Then he stopped laughing, said, “OK,” and popped the hood.
We got out and peered into the engine compartment. I’m not sure what, exactly, an improvised explosive device might look like—maybe some frayed wires running from the starter to a cartoonish six-pack of dynamite? There were lots of hoses and wires. I didn’t see anything that looked suspicious. I considered checking the oil, since I was there anyway, but decided against it. Apparently the good ol’ boys had only wanted to worry us. I slammed the hood, we got back in the car and drove over to the Denny’s for an awful breakfast, where I overheard a kid in the next booth (who was having ice cream for breakfast) ask, “What’s ‘thankful’ mean?”
Searching fo
r car bombs is not a step we normally include in our research itinerary, just as we don’t normally encounter people with guns, but the plot frequently turns and the general outline we follow is necessarily fluid. We always start with the same basic plan, but because every place and every race is different, we never know where we might end up. It actually helps that we are, to a certain degree, perennial outsiders, removed enough from local politics to be willing to ask stupid questions, yet familiar enough with the usual kinds of political shenanigans to know what to look for. It’s also crucial, obviously, to keep track of the reactions of people around us. In some cases the opponent runs for cover once word gets out that you’re triangulating around a potentially damaging revelation. You find a crack in his or her record, a sliver of light escapes and they drop out of the race or their supporters head for the hills. Alternatively, you may get a counteroffensive, which can take the form of threatening phone calls or a news conference attacking our candidate for running a smear campaign.
Unfortunately, the pathology of misdirected ambition isn’t limited to political miscreants. We see it to varying degrees, in myriad forms, in many of the candidates we research, including some of our own. It comes with the territory, with the desire to lead, to wield power, to earn the adulation of others. Everyone, it seems, likes good head. The big question is where does that ambition take them? Where they stand on the issues is what matters, but sometimes the best way to determine that is to document their behavior across the line. When our discoveries turn the attention on us, and occasionally summon nervous guys with shotguns or paralegal thugs, it becomes glaringly apparent that what we’re doing matters.
In the end, the Mississippi campaign used some of what we found, though the big issue was a detail that at first had seemed innocuous, compared with the suspicious property transactions: the fact that the opponent was operating one of his personal businesses from his official government office. I recognized this during a routine records search. He ended up losing the race, and afterward vanished from the political scene.
The other candidate, the one who supposedly was involved in the fire, fared somewhat better. Though he lost the congressional election, he found a future in politics on the lower end of the scale. I will never hear what happens to the trailer guy. Like so many people in the realm of politics, he is a bit player. He matters for a moment, then the political process rolls inexorably on, carrying Michael and me toward the next location on our itinerary and whatever revelations it may bring.
Chapter 2
Michael
She seems at ease, sitting on the top step of a large front porch, her legs crossed and a long, slim cigarette between her fingers. She wears a bit too much makeup, perhaps, but her face is pleasant and gives no reason to believe that the ensuing conversation won’t be the same. But then, that’s what I always think.
“So, can you tell me a little about your ex-husband?” I ask, standing on the bottom step with a notepad and pen in hand.
She just stares back, a blank expression at first, then a look of thoughtfulness as she searches for the right words. She has a soft voice and a demeanor that leaves me wondering whether she really wants to say anything at all. Then, in a tone that could put a baby to sleep, the words come, and for a moment seem as if they’ll never end.
Cocksucker. Cheating son of a bitch. Selfish bastard. Asshole. They are in sentences, of course, but all I hear are the words. I try to display sympathy and concern, but inside I’m smiling because I know, as I always have, that ex-wives, ex-husbands, ex-girlfriends, ex-lovers, ex-anythings make some of the best sources.
Alan and I had received the call a few days earlier. A local politician was making noise about jumping into a congressional race against a longtime incumbent worried about his record and, apparently, about his job. The election was more than a year out and the potential opponent had not yet announced. The task at hand was to try to make sure he never did.
We get these projects every now and again. Just see what’s out there, they say, and if there’s nothing, so be it. But of all the different types of campaign research we do, for some reason these usually prove the most fruitful: local politicians rattling their chains without having thought through the whole idea—and without understanding that longtime incumbents work hard to remain longtime incumbents.
The initial response from the ex on the front porch is a great start. But I need considerably more detail to go along with her most eloquent string of profanities. If we don’t have documentation, we have nothing. I know that her ex-husband likely isn’t a true “cocksucker,” and if he were, that wouldn’t be a crime. Even a congressman busted for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom can walk away with only a disorderly conduct conviction under his belt.
The point is just to keep the conversation flowing, to keep asking questions and always, always show interest in the answers, even if they are of little value. For more than a decade as newspaper reporters, Alan and I asked questions—a seemingly endless string of questions that sometimes led to great stories, but more often than not simply retrieved the information needed to meet a deadline and please an editor. The ability to always be the asker and never the answerer is a powerful thing. To always get and never give may seem selfish to some, but offering information to gain information diminishes its value and weakens the interviewer. Questions are a companion; they are a friend. And the more ways you know how to ask them, the more successful you will be.
Unfortunately, in this case, the front porch interview isn’t going very far. It’s not because she doesn’t want to offer as much as she can; it’s because she just doesn’t know that much about the man. His business dealings are a mystery to her. His political affairs are an unknown. She knew him as a husband only, and now she despises him.
“So when you say he’s a ‘cocksucker,’ I’m just guessing you’re talking about your marriage?”
And then she begins. Yes, she is referring to her marriage. Yes, he was the shittiest, most ill-tempered husband on the face of the earth. Yes, he had put business and politics before her. And yes, he had left her and started seeing another, younger, woman. That little piece of trash, as she refers to her.
It was not a lot of useable information, but enough to keep going. “Can you tell me anything about her? About their relationship?”
They now live together, she tells me. The girlfriend doesn’t work, doesn’t have children. They travel a lot, go to places he never took her when they were married. She resents him for all of it. Fury tempered by hatred.
“Anything else?”
“Oh yeah,” she says, almost as an afterthought, “I think he was arrested for beating her up.”
These are the moments when a pause is not only mandatory; it is involuntary. It gives you time to take a deep breath and let the words wrap themselves around you. You betray no excitement, no indication that the statement has any more meaning than any other. Reactions are contagious; they have the potential to frighten and shut down the recipient. So I just stare down at my notepad and jot the words “assault” and “arrested.” I scribble a big star to the side.
“So, what was that all about?” I ask in near monotone, still looking down. “Was there anything to that?”
She proceeds to tell me that the couple was going on a vacation when the incident supposedly occurred. She doesn’t know where they were going, somewhere out West she thinks, but says he “slapped her around” in an airport en route. I gently probe for additional details, but she doesn’t have much else. She must have recognized that the information held some value because she then asks if it is something I think I can use. I tell her it’s possible, but that I’m not sure.
But that isn’t true. I am sure.
Polling is the lifeblood of any well-funded political campaign. The information Alan and I provide is used to develop the questions that pollsters ask of voters. And one thing polls show is that voters will tolerate and even accept an awful lot of misgivings by politicians. The
y have tolerated cheating spouses, dalliances with prostitutes, the occasional DUI, college drug use and even cocksucking in the White House. But they will never condone domestic violence. Slapping a woman around is a political killer.
Back at the office, I’m poring over a U.S. map, trying to figure out where the slapdown may have occurred. The red circles in front of me highlight the major airport cities that the couple could have passed through en route to a vacation out West. They are starting points for tracking down the alleged assault. If such an incident did happen, there could be an arrest report or at least an incident report on file at one of those airports.
“You might be better off just taping that to the wall and throwing darts at it,” Alan tells me, unnecessarily.
“No, I have a system,” I say. But in reality the trail from the ex-wife’s front porch is leading nowhere. I am striking out, one airport at a time. With only a couple left to go, I know if they don’t pan out, then we have nothing. And we have to have something.
If exes make the best sources, cops are often some of the worst. They, like us, deal in collecting information, not disseminating it. They don’t talk much, especially to people they don’t know. It’s even harder when the conversation is by telephone. And oftentimes, criminal acts aren’t made available to the public until they enter the court system. Arrest and incident reports may never see the light of day. But you still have to try.
The call to the next airport security office starts the same way the others have. I tell the officer that I’m trying to track down some information on an assault that supposedly occurred in front of one of their gates. I have the name of the assailant and the victim, and I’m hoping for some assistance.
