In March, Roll Call trekked over to the DCCC headquarters to take an inside look at their opposition research department. The article gives some unique insight into our line of work.
The DCCC team shared some interesting “tricks.” Donuts to the archives secretary is a great one— a helpful secretary (who knows their DOS database inside and out) can be a real godsend. Grilling the town barber about local politics gets kudos for inventiveness.
See the full piece here.
The first in a series that will look at opposition research in the wild, in television ads, online and in print communications.
Last month, the House Majority PAC ran an ad against Rob Cornilles, a candidate in Oregon’s 1st District. The ad adeptly criticized Cornilles’ record as a job creator, using the history of his sports marketing company, Game Face, against him.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfTAd-5kENs]
Hats off to the researcher who dug up this gold mine of a YouTube video, or the tracker who recorded it, which features Cornilles making some interesting claims about the number of jobs he created at Game Face:
“…we’ve been able to employ about 60 people, 60 Oregonians, and give them hopefully, a great place to go to work every day and a great place to have a future for themselves and their own families. And in our business, we’ve also been able to create jobs for about 500 people around the country.”
Jeff Mapes, a political correspondent for the Oregonian, dissected Cornilles’ 60 employee claim, and it turns out he was counting every person he’d ever hired in the 16-year stint of the company, and while that may make him technically right, it’s definitely not the whole truth.
Mapes also looked into Cornilles’ creation of “500 jobs,” discovering his jobs training program was something of a sham — noting that unpaid trainees were forced to complete hours of telemarketing, while not receiving a whole lot of training.
According to Mapes’ research:
“… Game Face has never had more than 20 to 22 people at any one time, Cornilles acknowledges, and it’s now down to four full-time employees and two part-timers.”
“The company’s other brush with authorities came in 2007 when the Internal Revenue Service filed a tax lien of $83,284 against Game Face after it failed to pay payroll taxes for nine months.”
And, the employee complaint that Cornilles’ “Game Face Academy” was ripping people off:
“Basically, we were paying to work,” says Catherine Turallo, one of the complainants who paid $1,395 to attend the academy. They got a few tips on their selling techniques, but essentially worked the phones all day long, she says.
This isn’t the first time Cornilles has made exaggerated claims. In 2011, Cornilles called Game Face “one of the most influential consulting and executive training firms in the sports industry- worldwide,” and wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he had, “been invited into more front offices than any person in sports,” which is totally unverifiable.
In short, this is a solid, well-researched ad. The evidence of Cornilles’ tax problems, employee relations, and contradictory statements make a compelling case that voters should question Cornilles’ claims about his business acumen.
Well done.
