Oppo Research: Blackhatting and Whitehatting - A Crash Course

In my principal line of work, we apply both black hat and white hat analysis to size up our competition and ourselves. Many fields (notably, IT) also use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hat">black hat and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat">white hat analysis.

In the political world of opposition research, black and white hat analysis is used to find your opponents' vulnerabilities, as well as your own candidate's or those of the slate of possible nominees.

Both types of hatters serve a useful and vital purpose. Depending upon the client, one person may wear both hats, since the methods are essentially the same.

Depending on the level of the race (local, major municipal, state, or national), the information obtained and catalogued may literally fill rooms and extremely high-capacity, cross-indexed servers.

While surprises do emerge in both primary and general election races, much of the principal storylines are already pre-cooked, flash(drive) frozen, and ready to reheat, to mix my metaphors.

I always have the most respect for voters/citizens who - to their maximum personal ability - accomplish a microcosm of this data-dive on their own.

Just like any "spectator" sport, politics is a helluva lot more fun if you know the rules, the calls on the plays, the hand signals, the fakeouts, and the arcana.

Best to all, but most especially to the other amateur black hatters and white hatters that make this such a great place.

:toast:

- Dave

Keep the rest to yourself.

... is to lance all festering boils during the primaries, so that it's "old news" by the general.

- Dave

The mainstream media and the freepers are already carrying that water.

The interesting thing about chess is how easy it is to spot the cheating.

... over the http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=david+smith+halliburton">years.

- Dave

You should never tell everything you know.....

.... and there is a time and season for everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvf20Y6eoM

Enjoy, my friend!

:toast:

- Dave

Telling everything is like counting to infinity, twice (sans Norris suit).

... for indictments and convictions.

:toast:

- Dave