We're with Nobody

by Alan Huffman

  Portraying your opponent as soft on crime is a powerful weapon, more so when you have the facts to back it up. In this case, our assignment was to dig through the hundreds of opinions of an appeals court judge now running for Congress, looking for those that could cause him the most trouble. Our report to his campaign highlighted more than a handful, including a particularly disturbing case in which he rendered the lone dissenting opinion when it came to his court on appeal. It had trouble plastered all over it.

  The offender was a first-grade teacher. His victim was his eight-year-old student. The girl had testified at trial that he would take her to his car and that he would “touch her private parts.” He took the girl to a restaurant for dinner, then took her to the bathroom where he unzipped his pants, exposed himself and placed his “private part” between her legs and pressed it against her vagina for twenty minutes.

  The offender was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child under fourteen and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He argued on appeal that the evidence was legally insufficient to establish the element of “penetration with his sexual organ.” Two judges affirmed the trial court’s judgment. Our candidate disagreed, saying that the state failed to prove he’d penetrated the girl’s vagina. Our candidate wrote that there was no evidence to show contact into an area of the body not usually exposed to view, even in nakedness, as the state had alleged in the indictment. From a judge’s perspective it wasn’t a particularly noteworthy opinion. For a political candidate, it was pretty bad.

  The campaign knew that this and other cases could be used negatively against him in the upcoming race, and we knew that he was simply rendering opinions based on his interpretation of the law. In a tight race, such information would likely have been used like a baseball bat by the judge’s opponent. But in a heavily partisan district like this one, the race wasn’t all that close and our candidate was spared any negative onslaught. At least he was ready.

  In the days before the demise of newspapers, Alan and I had the fortune to work in a two-newspaper town. As reporters for the morning publication, the constant threat of being beaten on a story by our counterparts at the afternoon paper kept us tight, vigilant and wary. And, of course, we were always a little worried about the possibility of our editors calling us to their desks to chastise us if we were second on an important news piece. The only comfort was the knowledge that the afternoon reporters always faced the same threat. It was great competition and produced better newspapers for our readers. Opposition research is very similar, the main difference being that we don’t really know our competition. We never see them. But we are acutely aware that they’re out there, somewhere, always trying to gain the upper hand.

  “Someone was just here asking for that same information,” a courthouse clerk in a remote town in Kentucky told me one summer afternoon of research. Like a character in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, my first instinct was to slowly peer back over my shoulder, half expecting to see a nondescript man in a dark suit standing in the corner holding a newspaper just below his eyes. Instead, there was only a short, scruffy fellow donning a John Deere cap, waiting impatiently to pay some traffic tickets.

  Later, sitting in a records room with twenty strangers, I found myself periodically pulling away from the stack of documents I was reviewing to scan the room, attempting to determine whether the guy in the blue shirt and khaki slacks or the girl in the white dress with the pink cardigan around her neck was poring through the same stack of documents, discovering some tidbit of information that I hadn’t come across. One looked up at me briefly, smiled and went back to work. Was that her?

  I ordered dinner in the hotel dining room that night, subtly checking each table for the same people from the records room, or someone else who’d ordered the same meal I was having, surmising, with no basis in fact, that all political researchers must eat shrimp pasta with a beer. But then I reminded myself that Republican researchers more likely opt for the filet mignon and a ten-dollar glass of red wine. So I looked for that.

  Even on the plane ride home, I inconspicuously moved my eyes to the person sitting in the cramped seat next to me to see what he was reading. Maybe that person was doing the same thing to me, which is why it’s always a good idea to stick to the in-flight magazine.

  I talked with my candidate and the campaign manager and informed them that someone else had been asking questions and collecting material. “Who were they? Who were they with? What were they looking for?” they asked. In most every case, they become a little freaked out that this “person” even exists.

  Sometimes we’re able to determine what they were searching for and what they received. Sometimes we aren’t. In one instance, we actually filed an open records request seeking all of the open records requests that had been filed in the previous few months. They didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know in terms of factual information, but they did give us an idea of where the opposing campaign might be headed in terms of attacks, and the things about which they were most concerned.

  Conversely, our own information requests have sometimes been revealed. During an Arkansas race, a local newspaper reporter responded to claims by the opponent that our research had been “unethical” by filing an open records request for our open records requests. The opponent had charged that our candidate used proprietary insurance records to obtain information about health violations at the opponent’s restaurant. What the reporter found was that those so-called proprietary records had been public, provided to us by the state health department, so there was no impropriety. Still, the opponent managed to inject me, identified as “a paid researcher,” into the campaign.

  In another race, our candidate filed suit against the opponent—an incumbent public prosecutor—because he would not release information that Alan had requested concerning the operations of his office. The local newspaper identified Alan as a researcher hired by the campaign, and when the reporter called our office for comment, I answered the phone. He asked what we expected the records to show. I said, “Without seeing them, I have no idea what they’ll show.” Even that was more than I wanted to say.

  The fact that we’re doing research should never be the story; the findings are what matter. But the road has ears and you never know who’s listening. Maybe a newspaper reporter, maybe another researcher, or maybe just a busybody. Alan and I have learned not to talk business while conducting business. That lesson presented itself one day in a hallway outside of a county records room as we sat on a bench sorting through some property documents and discussing their importance.

  “I know where that is,” a voice suddenly said as I read off a street address to Alan. We looked up to see a woman staring at us. Not knowing who this person was and immediately feeling reckless for being overheard in such a public place, we both nodded as Alan quickly said, “We’ve got it, thanks.” Then we were gone.

  There’s no annual Opposition Researchers Convention that we know of, and even if there were, I feel confidant that no one would show. Just a banner, a table scattered with blank nametags and some empty chairs.

  Party crossover among political researchers is limited, partly because connections are with your own party, but mostly because it’s a matter of commitment, loyalty and trust. We have worked for Republican candidates only twice, both times in races where no Democrats were involved. It was oddly discomfiting, yet interesting to catch a glimpse of the inside of the opposing machine, which is no doubt another reason campaigns stick with researchers who share their ideology. It’s like driving into a strange town, stopping for a moment to get your bearings so you can figure out exactly where you need to go next.

  Single-party races are a breed of their own. It’s tougher to develop contrasts between candidates when both have records of wreaking havoc on the environment or baselessly shouting down tax increases or condemning same-sex marriage. Which candidate owns more guns? Which one is more rabid about closing the gates on immigrants? Which one would outlaw a
bortion in every single instance? The hot-button issues that either party likes to bring to life during a campaign can become even hotter when they decide to go after one another.

  Sometimes, the lines between good, bad and simply weird become hopelessly interwoven. The adage that “all politicians are the same” is far from true. No two are ever really alike. That fact was confirmed for me as I stood late one night on a ballroom dance floor as a candidate whom we were researching sashayed partnerless in fluid motions in front of me. I watched with a combination of awe, disbelief and wonderment.

  Alan was off on a different project, and I’d met up with the candidate at a local restaurant to go through the usual list of questions we always ask at the beginning of a self-research project. After dinner, several cocktails and a lengthy conversation, I was asked to follow the candidate home to collect some documents I needed for my report. And, of course, I complied when I was invited to see the dance floor the candidate had built in the house. A mirrored orb hung from the ceiling and music played as the dancing demonstration commenced. I can only imagine that my expression at that moment was that of a dog with a slightly cocked head, staring in confusion at something it didn’t quite understand or comprehend.

  So I just watched, trying to smile pleasantly and nod as the dancing candidate swooshed past me and back again. Any normal person would have been asking himself the same questions: How in the hell did I get here? When can I leave? Is this person going to ask me to dance as well? Please, God, no.

  While dancing candidates may be the exception, the element of strangeness they lend to our work can be curiously refreshing amid weeks of plowing through pages of often-dry information. And if someone’s willing to two-step across a dance floor in front of you in the middle of the night, that person is most likely going to be pretty open about themselves, which makes our job a little easier.

  Such was not the case with our Florida congressional candidate who had just finished chewing me out over the phone during a conversation that was supposed to be routine. “I’ll get back to you on the research,” he told me as he hung up. He never did.

  Sure enough, just as I tried to explain to him, his opponent in the race discovered the information he’d believed could somehow be kept hidden if he didn’t hire us to do the research. According to the local newspaper, the candidate had been accused by his opponent of cheating several people out of tens of thousands of dollars several years back. One of those he reportedly cheated came forward to share his story.

  The candidate told the paper that he was “astonished” that his opponent would stoop to such dirty politics. But no one else was, including us.

  A few days after he lost the race, Alan and I got a note from the now-former campaign manager, who said it was finally clear why the candidate shunned the research, because then he would have had to test it in a poll, and word would have gotten out. He’d told the candidate that he would be attacked, but he refused to believe it. He got pissed off, the manager said, arguing that since they hadn’t attacked him when he was the mayor, they wouldn’t go after him when he ran for Congress.

  If only those bowling balls would all land in the same place. . . .

  Chapter 13

  Alan

  The security line at the New Orleans city hall is maddeningly slow. New Orleans officially refers to itself, without irony, as the City that Care Forgot. The city claims both the highest percentage of native-born residents and the highest murder rate in the United States, which says something about familiarity; if you have the misfortune to get shot there, you have a greater chance of knowing your assailant than elsewhere. It also helps explain why the locals are prone to confusing weapons searches with opportunities to get caught up with each other.

  Only a visitor from the oddly caring universe beyond Lake Pontchartrain would object to such interruptions of daily life as being stranded in traffic during carnival season by the umpteenth miles-long parade snaking its way through the city, blocking every possible transportation route, during which an old woman riding in a grocery cart, dressed entirely in feather boas and pushed by a man wearing only a chef’s apron, proceeds to slosh beer on the hood of our car and shout, with surprising gusto, “Go to hell, assholes! Happy Mardi Gras!”

  The response of the cop on the corner? “Happy Mardi Gras, Colleen!”

  Passing through the slo-mo security line at city hall requires the presentation of photo ID and, judging from what we observe up ahead, chatting with the guards about Reggie Jackson and someone’s auntie’s recipe for crawfish étouffée, utterly mindless of the fact that there are twelve people waiting behind you in line. No one else seems bothered in the slightest by this, but by the time my turn to pass through the security screen comes, I’ve become nostalgic for care. In part, this is because Michael insisted that we stay out the night before until 3:00 AM drinking whiskey and dropping cash like drug dealers in what turned out to be a pretty awesome strip club. And I say that as someone who normally hates that kind of place. I ended up leaving before Michael, and the walk home, down Bourbon Street, had been a surreal slice of avant-garde cinema verité starring heat-seeking prostitutes, rent boys and drag queens—the only other pedestrians out at that time on a weeknight, who responded to my passage by launching themselves toward me, one after the other, while issuing a succession of profane offers and ultimatums. I’d never seen so many gold teeth up close.

  This coterie of furies hounded me all the way back to the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, where the last of them finally fell away, muttering in loud dismay. A few short hours later, Michael and I received our wakeup calls in the form of light knocks on our respective doors, followed by the familiar command, “Housekeeping!” Multiple cups of strong coffee served only to send waves of agitation through the ransacked temples of our bodies, and did nothing to prepare us for this security line. My head is pounding, I feel a little wobbly and I’ve begun to sweat profusely. Michael can barely speak.

  When I finally arrive at the stool on which the uniformed policeman is receiving company, she looks at my Mississippi driver’s license and very noticeably frowns. I’m not talking about a look of minor disapproval; I’m talking about an expression that requires exertion. I know where this is going, and I’m not up for it. My discomfort with being awake and forced to work has been waiting for just such a moment to find its voice.

  The cop, still nursing her theatrical frown, hands my license back to me, positions her other hand on her hip—the universal signal for “I don’t think so,” and levels on me a gaze that aptly conveys her complete dissatisfaction with the geography of my birth. Not only am I from beyond the boundaries of the known world (i.e., past Lake Pontchartrain), I’m from Mississippi, where the state flag incorporates the Confederate symbol.

  Which is true. I viewed the civil rights era from the vantage point of a white child in Mississippi, which is to say I assumed that families the world over passed the smoldering ruins of fire-bombed churches in their station wagons on the way to Mammaw’s house. It was only later, as a teenager, that I realized something had actually been terribly, uniquely wrong. Over time, despite my lack of culpability, I became accustomed to occasionally serving as a convenient scapegoat for civil rights–era crimes, typically by people in the North. (Although I once received a reprimand from a German, to whom I responded that if my homeland had been responsible for the Holocaust I would most assuredly keep my opinions about other people’s human rights violations to myself.) I’ve come to terms with this. However, on this particular morning, I’m not feeling very agreeable when the cop expresses her unspoken yet obvious displeasure with the state that authorized me to drive.

  “What?” I demand to know. Basically asking for it.

  “Mississippi—that’s a state I don’t like. Done some bad things to black folks,” she says. “Mm hmm. Sure did.”

  I’m thinking, “OK, the judges will accept that. Some very bad things were done to black people in Mississippi way back when. But now I’m supposed t
o hear about it from someone in Louisiana?”

  “Like it wasn’t bad in Louisiana!” I shoot back.

  She stares at me for a long moment, thinking. Then, to my surprise, she grins, and in the beguiling dialect of the Lower Ninth Ward, or perhaps Treme, exclaims, “I heard dat! It was worser here,” and gives me a high five. Afterward I feel as if I have passed through more than the security portal; I have now successfully entered one of the few places where New Orleans pretends to care—its fraternité. And with that, I am free to proceed into the city’s disorganized, mildewed city hall. Little do I know that this right of passage will be the high point of my day.

  “Where’s the clerk’s office?” Michael blurts out, preemptively, as I await him, just inside the perimeter. The guard points toward the elevator and summons the next visitor in line. She is satisfied, apparently, and barely gives Michael’s driver’s license a glance.

  What follows is, for us, painful, made more so by the caustic mix of caffeine and slowly degrading alcohol coursing through our irregularly pulsing veins. Despite my momentary triumph in the security line, it is only with great difficulty that I can concentrate on the blurry records. At one point I leave the room and return to find Michael sound asleep with his head resting on a docket book, his briefcase open beside him, revealing a telltale tabletop sign decorated with daisies drawn in different colors of Sharpies, with the name “Amber” scrawled across in childish script—a gift from one of the dancers the night before.

  Despite all of this, we soon begin finding great stuff, tying our candidate’s campaign contributors to the awarding of government contracts—a surprisingly common enterprise among elected officials, as you may have noticed. Our somnambulant success stems from a healthy matrix, I like to think. It’s not so much that we could actually do it in our sleep as that even when we’re weary—for whatever reason—we know how to get on the ride. We are not easily diverted, even by our own efforts to find diversion. An evening spent in consort with strippers, followed by a morning spent enduring low-grade agitation in the bowels of a musty government building, is oddly conducive to our kind of work. In the best cases, our off-road forays actually serve to rejuvenate us, preventing us from becoming oppo automatons—the functional equivalent of computerized search engines. We are, ultimately, two naturally subjective guys with an unwaveringly objective agenda.