Chapter 32 Exercises

Exercise 1: Building a Mini Research File

Select a current state or federal elected official (not a sitting president). Using only publicly available sources, build a mini research file on this official. Your file must include:

Section A: Financial Record - Total campaign contributions received in their most recent race (use FEC or state equivalent) - Top five industry categories of donors - Any individual contributions of $5,000 or more from sources with potential conflicts of interest before the official's relevant body or jurisdiction - Any political donations the official has made to other candidates

Section B: Public Statement Record - At least two public statements on a policy issue where you can document a clear position - At least one case where you can find an earlier statement on the same issue that could be characterized as inconsistent (if one exists)

Section C: Official Record - For legislators: three votes that you would flag as potentially difficult to defend in a general election - For executives: two regulatory, enforcement, or budgetary decisions with potential political vulnerability

Section D: Research Assessment Write a 250-word memo addressed to an opponent's campaign manager. What is the strongest vulnerability in this official's record? How would you time and place it to generate maximum impact?

Note: This exercise is purely educational. Do not contact officials, publish your findings, or attempt to have your research acted upon.

Exercise 2: The Oppo Dump Decision Tree

The Whitfield campaign has three pieces of opposition research on Garza ready to deploy. They must decide when and how to use each:

Item A: The 2014 sentencing reform vote. Garza voted against a bipartisan bill. Her floor statement explaining her reasoning is available but nuanced. The vote directly contradicts her current criminal justice messaging.

Item B: The trial lawyer contribution pattern. Over her career, Garza received $340,000 from plaintiff firms. As AG, several enforcement decisions were favorable to plaintiff interests. The connections are documented but circumstantial.

Item C: The 2011 immigration tweet expressing a more restrictive position than her current platform. The tweet was deleted but is preserved in web archives.

For each item, address:

  1. Timing: When in the campaign would you release this item? (Options: Before debates, midcampaign with a news hook, final two weeks, hold for only if needed.) Explain your timing logic.

  2. Placement: Which type of journalist or outlet would you approach? What hook would you offer?

  3. Framing: In two sentences, how would you characterize this research to a reporter?

  4. Risk assessment: What is the downside risk of releasing this item? What are the ways the Garza campaign could respond effectively?

  5. Ethics check: Applying Chris Yuen's "full context test," does this item pass? Why or why not?

Exercise 3: Rapid Response Simulation

It is 10:47 AM on a Thursday, six weeks before Election Day. Nadia Osei's monitoring system sends an alert: a story has just posted on the state's largest political news website. The headline: "Garza's AG office settled pharmaceutical case for fraction of assessed penalty, records show."

The story, based on public enforcement records, documents that during Garza's tenure as AG, her office reached a settlement with a pharmaceutical company for $2.1 million — approximately 14% of the $15 million penalty the agency's enforcement staff had initially assessed. The reporter has reached out for comment and given a 90-minute deadline.

You are Marcus Bell, the Garza campaign's rapid response writer.

Step 1 (15 minutes on the clock): Write a rapid response assessment. What are the key facts you need to find immediately? What's the best possible explanation for the settlement, and what's the worst? What tone should the response take?

Step 2 (45 minutes on the clock): Draft the campaign's official response statement (no more than 150 words). The statement must respond to the substance, not just deflect.

Step 3 (60 minutes on the clock): Draft a tweet from the official @GarzaForSenate account (280 characters maximum).

Step 4 (90 minutes on the clock): Draft three talking points for surrogates who will be doing media interviews in the next four hours.

Step 5 (Reflection): After the rush is over, evaluate the response. What information did you not have that you needed? What would you do differently if you could redo the first 90 minutes?

Exercise 4: The Ethics of Opposition Research

Evaluate each of the following opposition research scenarios on a scale from "clearly legitimate" to "clearly inappropriate," with explanation:

  1. A campaign hires an investigator to compile all public court records involving the opponent — civil suits, criminal records, divorces — and presents this compilation to reporters as evidence of a "pattern of litigation and legal trouble."

  2. A campaign's social media researcher discovers that the opponent, under a pseudonymous account, has been active in an online forum for collectors of vintage firearms — a legal hobby that is not publicly known. The campaign shares this information with a reporter covering the race.

  3. A campaign researcher finds an opponent's college newspaper op-ed from 30 years ago expressing views that were controversial even at the time. The op-ed is signed with the opponent's full name. The campaign shares it with reporters three weeks before Election Day.

  4. A campaign receives, from an anonymous source, a copy of an internal strategy memo from the opposing campaign. The document was apparently obtained by a disgruntled former staffer and emailed to the campaign without solicitation. The campaign's research director reads it and uses the strategic intelligence to adjust the campaign's messaging.

  5. A campaign runs a digital advertising campaign in the opponent's name featuring the opponent's actual quotes — accurately attributed — that are presented alongside policy positions the opponent opposes, designed to create the impression that the opponent supports those positions. The association is false, but every individual quote is real.

For each scenario: Is this legitimate opposition research? Is it ethical? Is it legal? (Note: these three questions may have different answers.)

Exercise 5: Building a Rapid Response Protocol

You have been hired as the campaign manager for a state legislative candidate running in a competitive district. You have a staff of six people and a digital/communications budget of $40,000 for the general election. Design a rapid response protocol for this campaign.

Your protocol document should address:

  1. Monitoring: What will you monitor, with what tools, and how will you ensure 24/7 coverage?

  2. Escalation: When a story breaks, who needs to be notified and in what order? What is the decision tree for whether and how to respond?

  3. Response tiers: Define at least three tiers of stories requiring different response speeds (e.g., Tier 1: requires response within 30 minutes; Tier 2: 2 hours; Tier 3: next business day). What criteria determine which tier applies?

  4. Message architecture: What are the five most likely attacks the opponent might make? Pre-write one-paragraph responses to each.

  5. Resource constraints: With a small team and limited budget, where are the gaps in this protocol? What could go wrong, and how would you mitigate those risks?