A Walk on the Dirty Side of Politics: ‘Can You Tell Me a Little About Your Ex-Husband?’
A longtime opposition researcher on the dirty side of politics and why you always start with the ex-wife
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.
“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. Her words start flowing, in a tone that could put a baby to sleep, and for a moment it seems that they may never cease.
“Cheating son of a bitch.” “Selfish bastard.” And worse. They are in sentences, of course, but all I hear is those phrases. 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.
My business partner 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 who was worried, 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 that 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, this usually proves 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.
In this case, the front-porch interview isn’t going very far; she just doesn’t know that much about the man. His business dealings are a mystery to her. His political affairs are an unknown.
“So when you say he’s a ‘bastard,’ 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 most ill-tempered husband on the face of the earth. And yes, he had left her and started seeing another, younger, woman. They now live together, she tells me. They travel a lot, go to places he never took her. She resents him for all of it.
“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. I just stare down at my notepad and jot the words “assault” and “arrested.” I scribble a big star to the side.