My limited knowledge of opposition research - namely, that the Taylor campaign put me, of all people, to work sifting through news clippings - suggests that yes, opposition research is going to need some work. The sad truth is that the DPG doesn't have the money to do everything we'd like, and if it's a choice between sifting through haystacks for the needle that pops Chambliss and sticking to the grassroots basics, I vote for the latter.

Opposition research gets the glory when it finds that needle in the haystack, but it is the unsung hero of many campaigns if it simply plods along doing its job, building a case, working the press, etc.

Seeing as everyone at the DPG is either getting fired or quitting though, it doesn't seem like they are doing much of anything.

What’s this? Chris joining the chorus of party bashers? That’s soooo 2005.

Stefan, most of the people here (and voters in general), hate dirty tricks, not necessarily negative campaigning, or even what is euphemistically referred to by consultants as “contrast pieces”. And there's a huge difference.

Dirty tricks are when Democrats send mailers into black communities claiming their Democratic opponent wants to return Georgia to the days of Jim Crow. Dirty tricks are when toolshed consultants produce slanderous mail pieces claiming another Democrat is responsible for the deaths of children. Or slimy push polls, robocalls from Orlando Jones, nasty flyers about a candidate's sexuality, Astoturf blogs, and the like. Dirty tricks are lies.

Where were all these tactics in the General Election? And what good is opposition research if it's only aimed at our own heads? By suggesting we need more opposition research, you might as well suggest we hand loaded guns to children. Even Karl Rove learned his lesson from the McCain smear, but somehow we haven’t quite made that leap.

I understand politics is a contact sport, but the way I’ve seen Democrats use opposition research in this state is a bad joke. Frankly, I'm relieved the DPG isn’t engaged in this in any significant way, since the results of previous attempts were pretty spotty. With the notable exception of Sonny's big land deal. Remember that one? It was going to swing the election for us. Yawn.

The main reason the consultant class and the old school party people hate blogs (in addition to post like this) is because they subvert these oppo tactics to some extent. Speaking of which, when your buddy Matt starts laying down comments here about how “we don’t say mean things about fellow Democrats”, you can take that call.

But getting back to your original example, the fact is the Bush administration had been rocked by scandal upon scandal prior to 2004 and NOTHING stuck. The 10 year old Cheney video would have been no exception and would have been just another drop in the bucket compared to this:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1539/

The only thing that would have changed the outcome of the 2004 Presidential race would have been a better Democratic candidate.

I’m told the budget for a US Senate race is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 million. That should be plenty to cover just about any “research” the candidate requires. This is no job for the DPG or anyone who likes to sleep at night. As has been pointed out here and elsewhere, we’ve currently got three candidates in this race, and each is flawed in their own special ways. We are living in a glass house. Are you really suggesting we start throwing rocks?

I would be so bold as to say the party's job is to promote our ideals and make "liberal" a non-dirty word while driving conservative "thought" into the ground.

Our fire is wasted on individuals in the big picture - not every Republican we face will be Abramoff dirty, Foley hypocritical or George Allen backwards. Repubs are very good at playing the "we are all sinners" card at these moments and firewall away the conservative disease. Personally, I think all the above cases are symptoms of Republicanism, but that case needs to be made. Targeted oppo research just plays into the flawed human being excuse.

It wins individual races, but not the battle of ideas.

Mel,

I think you have the idea of opposition research a little one sided. While yes, it does include digging up dirt on the opponent, it is mostly concerned with researching the opponents public record. Their votes, public statements etc. So that when a candidate makes a campaign promise or public statement, you can look back on their public record and say, hey wait a minute that is not what you said or did in the past.

Also, I think a point that MOS was making and may have been lost a little is that the campaings will not have the time to do a thorough job of researching saxby if they wait until after the primary and wouldn't it be nice if on the day after election day the DPG could provide whomever wins with a good starting place with all the basics already done.

That is my $.02

I think this is a fascinating discussion, however I'm puzzled how we think this might occur... ie the "DPG" should do.

We're still clearly a party of candidate driven agenda and not a party of message and community building. Heck it may very well be years before we're ever that.

So in my mind, I wouldn't waste the money, and just exactly how would the priority be set? By who? With what input, for which candidate, is it always top down or should we start in a AD or County Commission race in Bibb?

This again plays back into the "we only know what your against, not what you're for" argument.. which I think we're all bored by.

I am not talking about mailers and hate pieces and robocalls and the like. There is no way to beat a candidate like Saxby without showing Georgia what he is all about. I don't see either Vernon or Cardwell raising 10-15 million, and the problem isn't just money, it is time. Notice I am referring to general election oppo, not primary oppo.

Should the party build grassroots? YES.

Should the party do research? I would say yes, but if they answer is no, who will do it?

I think General election oppo is what we should be concentrated on anyway, ideally if Democrats had enough grassroots support statewide, they wouldn't only be approached by us coming from an individual candidate and that should make primary campaigns more genial.

Which is part of the reason I am talking about the general.

If you ask campaigns to do the general election research, they will have to devote time and energy away from the primary, which is unlikely, and they both will be covering the same ground, which is inefficient.

I don't like attack pieces at all. For one thing, it kills donor momentum. But, you must give people a reason to switch when facing an incumbent, otherwise they will say, well he hasn't done anything wrong, why should we kick him out?

What goes on at the state capitol, in the legislature, and, to a lesser degree, the U.S. Congress, is not well publicized and a lot of back room dealing is hidden and needs to be flushed out. The local media does not do this job, even though they should.

I honestly do not think the Cheney piece would have changed the election, but you have to remember that a lot of the bad news about the Bush administration has come out after the 2004 elections, otherwise known as the last time we could have done something about it. What changed between 2004 and 2006? The information about the war sunk in. Could that information have sunk in faster had we done a better job of publicizing it? If they was more of it? If it was more damning?

regarding the battle of ideas:

I am not suggesting we should cede this ground. But their ideas are rooted in hypocrisy and their words smack of pretext. Sometimes our words alone cannot combat their focus group tested phrases of patriotism and faith but when their actions are antithetical to their voiced beliefs, it allows us to engage their rhetoric in real terms.

The problem with what we say as liberals is that we choose to deal in nuance, leaving out opponents with the grand universal statements, oppo research allows you to force them to deal with the reality of their actions, and engage the debate in realistic human terms.

Or at least I hope it does.

He, Dick Cheney, said pretty much the same thing in August of 2000.

Sorry, hre's the link http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=06dc8e35-0caf-4b9c-b61c-d1d201a053e0&p=Source_Countdown&t=c1149&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/&fg=

Mel, I don't want to bash the party. I think it is an effective vehicle for many things. That said, there are a lot of rumors floating around out there about what's going on, staff, etc and it would be nice to see some clarity. I think the scrutiny that this site and others gave the party when friends weren't in charge shouldn't go away now that the leaders run in closer circles.

As for Saxby, I wouldn't be as worried as the national party committees do a lot of the heavy lifting (vote databases and such) when it comes to Senate and Congressional races.

What I would worry about are the state candidates who rely on the party once they qualify for office. Is anyone at the party doing daily news monitoring, updating research files, keeping track of votes, checking campaign and finance disclosures to look for the next Land Deal or lobbyist scandal etc? For instance, has the party even been talking with the news media about the Public Service Commission happenings and the admittedly bizarre turn of events going on today. It seems clear that utilities are trying to kick off a consumer friendly member (who happens to be a Republican) and we're not hearing much about it from the Dems, even though it is one of the few relevant issue to comment on right now.

Back to research, it's very hard to play catch up with this kind of stuff, not to mention if someone drops dead or gets indicted or whatever and we have a special election on our hands tomorrow. I know that this type of boring but necessary work is important to elected officials and many of the top donors to the party (at least it was in the past) and I'd be concerned for the party that if they don't do this type of work, some other organization will eventually step up and take their place and many of their donors.

If you look at the vast majority of other state parties, they do not raise nearly the amount of money for operating expenditures that the Georgia party has. The reason is that those parties are mostly just social clubs full of bickering and donors who want to get Democrats elected are forced to start their own independent organizations to do so.

Ironically or maybe just desserts or whatever you want to call it, I haven't been very pleased with the new Chair even though I supported her. However, I want the party to remain relevant and I also want her to succeed. I think Stefan's constructive criticism is a good thing, the same way I was always willing to engage in the past when the criticism was being leveled at me and my crowd.

IMO Negative campaigning is presenting negative facts about one's opponent. The Cheney clip falls into this category.

Dirty campaigning is presenting lies or spinning a fact so badly it amounts to a lie. Swift Boat Vets for truth was dirty.

I think Chris has the makings of a good post in his comments - "Is the DPG prepared for a special election"? I personally don't know all the details in running a special election, but if Chris writes the piece, I will front post it. And as always, I will offer to post a rebuttal piece.

Any takers?

I'll think about it Smitty. That wasn't exactly my point, but an interesting question nonetheless.

I think the conversation can be framed without attacking current or past employees.

Using the 10th Congressional Race for example, here are some pertinent questions that can determine if we are ready for the next special election:

1. did the DPG's efforts fail because we didn't recruit the right candidate (thereby the entire recruiting process either failed or was nonexistent),

2. was the candidate's team ill-prepared to work in such a short time frame(has the DPG invested enough in training campaign staff so our candidates have the best available resources or are we not serving our candidates well by having them cobble together and develop their own hodgepodge team),

3. did the DPG rely solely on the candidate to deliver a message to the voters (goes back to Jules' statement of "we only know what your against, not what you're for")

4. does the DPG have the capacity to mobilize its county parties in a quick and effective manner (what is the response time for critical special elections, do we have a rapid response team prepared)

5. was the DPG's opposition research efficient (did we ask help from our constituency group friends who may have a better handle on where our opponents stand on key issues)

6. did we implore our constituent group friends (did we ask them to send out information to mobilze their base supporters)

7. did the DPG send a clear message to its donors that this was an important race (did our donors understand their importance and role in securing a win in this race).

8. did we implore the resources and talents of our elected officials (did the DPG leave it up to the candidates to seek out endorsements or did they provide a forum for our elected officials to meet all the candidates)

Even in a contested primary and/or special election, I believe that there are new methods that we can use to create and foster better experiences for candidates, grassroots supporters, donors, constituents, and others.

With new power comes the opportunity to implore new ideas.