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Opposition research

Digging dirt, digitally

How to ensure that dumb things politicians say get a wide audience

One of the houses the Clintons bought when they were “dead broke”WHEN Bruce Braley, a little-known Iowa Democrat,

dismissed Senator Charles Grassley as “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school” (a description that fits a lot of Iowa voters),

he may not have expected his remarks to be posted online. He should have. America Rising, a firm that conducts “opposition research” on behalf of Republicans,

was delighted to disseminate his gaffe, since Mr Braley is running in Iowa for an open US Senate seat.

The recording, made as Mr Braley was soliciting donations from trial lawyers, has hobbled his campaign.

Opposition research is as old as politics itself—Cicero's orations against Catiline, a dodgy candidate for the Roman consulship in 63BC, were notably well-informed.

But some parties are better than others at “oppo”, as it is now called.

Democrats outdid Republicans in 2012 thanks partly to the professionalism of American Bridge 21st Century (“Bridge”),

which was set up in 2010 and is backed by George Soros, a financier, and others.

Bridge prepared dossiers on prominent Republicans and sent staffers to film Republican candidates' every move, waiting to pounce on ill-chosen words.

It worked. Bridge circulated a video of Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican running for the Senate, using the phrase “legitimate rape”.

Mr Akin later said he meant “forcible”, not “legitimate”, but the gaffe probably cost him the election.

Otempora, o mores

For the presidential campaign, Bridge helped to drive a national conversation about Republican nominee Mitt Romney's past in private equity,

allowing Barack Obama to benefit from bare-knuckle capitalist-bashing without having to roll up his own sleeves.

Bridge is now gearing up for this year's congressional races; it reports raising and spending over 2.6m in the first three months of 2014.

After Mr Romney lost, Republican grandees were determined to build a national rival to Bridge. Matt Rhoades, a former Romney campaign manager,

joined Tim Miller and Joe Pounder, former Republican National Committee officials, to lead the way.

They took 100,000 from the remnants of a pro-Romney campaign fund and more cash from big donors, and set about hiring researchers and “trackers”.

America Rising hopes that its investigations and ever-expanding store of video footage will help Republicans, or at least force Democrats to watch what they say.

“Back in the old days, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu a Democrat could go down to Louisiana and say one thing about her position on energy, and then go talk to some liberal donors and say another thing,” says Mr Miller.

More or less every word a candidate says now lives online somewhere.

So groups like Rising and Bridge can build enormous, searchable databases of their opponents' statements and systematically search for contradictions.

When they find one, they can alert reporters, or sympathetic activists who can then create ads or web campaigns exploiting the discovery.

Both Rising and Bridge are constantly in touch with these other groups, coordinating their attacks.

The most valuable employee is no longer a loyalist willing to trail a candidate for months, but a skilled digital researcher.

The two oppo groups are already building cases against possible presidential candidates for 2016.

Bridge has been digging for dirt on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie,

some of it relating to a traffic jam on a bridge that his aides are alleged to have caused to punish a mayor who crossed him.

They are also scouring documents related to an investigation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's campaign finances.

And of course Bridge and Rising are at war over Hillary Clinton. The Republicans have a dedicated anti-Hillary team,

are building a video archive of all her appearances, have published an e-Book to pick apart her recent memoir and are posting shareable barbs,

such as pictures of two rather grand houses the Clintons bought around the time when Mrs Clinton said they were “dead broke”.

Mrs Clinton's defenders at Bridge have created an organisation called “Correct the Record” to rebut Republican attacks on the former secretary of state.

Over the past decade oppo has turned from an art into a science, with fewer camera-wielding college students hiding behind trees and more staff staring at screens all day,

monitoring livestreamed interviews and campaign events. Both sides dream of upending an opponent with an Akinesque “gotcha”,

but the daily reality is more mundane. On Rising's website, the self-explanatory headline above one video is “Rep. Joe Garcia (D-FL) Picks His Ear And Eats It”.