Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Political Hitman: My Secret Life of Scandal, Corruption, Hypocrisy and Dirty Attacks That Decide Who Gets Elected (and Who Doesn't)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Marks sees political hitmen as the most influential people in a political race. He writes from 12-some years' experience behind the scenes as an opposition researcher - aka political hitman, and assassin of reputations.

Those hiring political hitmen include the committees to elect various candidates, PACs, political committees, 572 groups (new entities created to evade McCain-Feingold restrictions), and even the candidates themselves (identify areas of vulnerability).

Information sources include voting records, bill sponsorship (sometimes the bills candidates proudly claim "sponsorship" of involved 100+ other sponsors; obviously, some other bills appear negative on the surface - eg. reduced penalties for child-molesters; still another fertile ground is looking for flip-flops down through the years). Marks also tells us that state comptroller offices are a good source of dirt - eg. agency audits or other evidence of government waste, a candidate being behind on personal taxes, etc. Camcorders can also sometimes be a good source - eg. George Allen and "macaca."

Negative ads involve a simple three-step process: 1)The hitman digs up dirt. 2)Pollsters determine which dirt is most damaging. 3)Media folks put the best dirt out to the public.

Marks is clearly a conservative Republican supporter - yet, he doesn't hesitate to state that Democrats can't hold a candle to Republicans in hypocrisy regarding "family values." New Gingrich and Bob Livingston (both House Speakers), Mark Foley, Larry Craig, etc. (And then there's Jack Abramhoff, and friends.)

The bulk of "Confessions of a Political Hitman" is taken up with specifics invovling various campaigns Marks had been involved in. My favorite involved a candidate for Arizona's Republican nomination for governor - Bob Goldwater. Turns out Goldwater lacked none of his famous uncle's talents - at best, he was more than a quart low, late on his personal taxes, and incredibly biased against illegal immigrants. Worse yet, Goldwater's campaign tried to stiff Marks for his vulnerability research - to collect, Marks' secretary had to call Goldwater's campaign office and threaten to release the (itemized) information they had dug up on him. (Marks was immediately paid.)

Another interesting story involved Pat Buchanan's campaign for President. Marks has very high regard for Buchanan's ethics and lack of bias (contrary to those believing Pat is anti-Semitic); however, this admiration does not extend to Bay Buchanan - Pat's sister, who ran his campaigns. Marks found her personally obnoxious, and running a campaign that stiffed many creditors (despite heavy contributions) while taking $100,000/year+ for herself - even a year or so after the campaign. Many campaign financial violations were found by federal investigators and Marks himself, but the FEC did nothing.

The biggest issue is whether negative ads are effective. Marks has no doubt, though he does cite several instances where they backfired. To make his case that negative advertising have played key roles in recent elections, Marks reviews each presidential election from 1980 on. 2004 - the Swift boat ads sank Kerry while directly attacking his strength, especially when he delayed responding. 2000 - Gore's support for the Brady Bill was highlighted by NRA ads in key "Blue" states (eg. W. Virginia) and Marks believed they cost Gore the election. 1996 - Clinton aired negative local ads about the Republican Congress long before the election. Republicans failed to respond (thought the ads were too early to have an impact), and lost. 1992 - rerunning Bush I's "read my lips" was all it took. 1988 - Willie Horton, Boston Harbor (filthy), and Gov. Dukakis' opposition to Ma. children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance were all it took for Bush I to win. 1984 - Reagan won in a landslide, due to his popularity, and helped by Mondale's pledge to raise taxes. This was the one year Marks believes negative campaigning did not play a key role. Finally, 1980 - Reagan's "Are you better or worse off than you were four years ago?" put Carter out of office in a close race.

Ending "Confessions of a Political Hitman," Marks reviews each of the current leading candidates and cites what he believes are their vulnerabilities to negative ads, and includes his misgivings about working as a political hitman.

I had very high expectations for this book, having seen Mr. Marks on "Hardball". He came across as funny, articulate and a true "insider". It is evident, from this memoir, that despite his almost 20 years in "the game", that his retirement was brought on not only because of his personal, growing distaste of the job, but he seemed to have worked on as many, if not more, failed campaigns as successful ones. I wonder that perhaps work was harder to come by given his resume.

Additionally, I cannot remember EVER reading a book that was so poorly proofread. I marked no fewer than 25 mispellings, punctuation errors (parentheticals were never closed), and one or two places where it was evident entire sentences were omitted! This made me wonder, if a book gets published with so many glaring mistakes, how trustworthy was the text itself?

Do not spend your hard earned money on this book--get a library copy, and then decide whether you even want to spend your time. Terrible waste of mine.

The Confessions of a Political Hitman, by Stephen Marks, is an eye-opener. Marks makes it easy to understand what happens in a world were one mistake is used against you like acid. In a world full of media spot light and fakeness Marks, an "Oppo Man' finds the dirt, the acid of people in order to get the public to choose between the two evils. In this book Marks does a good job of presenting the facts and the events and leaving it up to reader of what is truly the correct thing to do. He presents himself as a funny guy and as an "insider" of this world. The book is a great to start asking question of who you really are electing as your respresentative.

There is a void ready for a book with this title to occupy. Though there are plenty of books on politics available- for nearly every viewpoint, era, and geographic location- there aren't a great number on the behind-the-scenes business of public images and negative campaigning.
And there are moments where this book skirts the edges of being the book that should occupy that void. When talking about what an "Oppo Man", or Opposition Researcher, actually does to gain the information that goes into a negative television, radio, or newspaper spot, the author offers up some interesting information. Likewise some- but sadly, only some- of the anecdotes of campaigns worked for; the stories of being thrown out of a courthouse by officials loyal to the party to be researched or "conning" a worker at a club into giving access to a damaging photograph make for a more cohesive picture of what an Opposition Researcher might go through in the pursuit of the target's weak spot.
And then we get the author's own, personal voice. Alas.
Beyond anything else, Marks comes off like a guy sitting on the stool next to you in a bar who took a returned "hello" as an invitation to start talking to you at length. And like that guy, he has a few interesting things to say and an awful lot of things to say that might cause you to smile and nod in order to be pleasant while looking for a way to extricate yourself.
For a guy in a bar, that's okay- you might even tell a friend about that interesting anecdote you heard the other night. From a pundit, an informed source, we can, do, and should expect a little more perspective, distance, and objectivity than is on offer in this book.
For example, we get to hear more than once (from Marks) how Mr. Marks' has terrific political instincts. And then we hear how many of the campaigns he worked for lost. How his sure-fire, can't-miss research zinger was never used. How surprised he was and is that the electorate bit the other way. In particular, while Marks claims his exposure to the seedy side of his party had moderated his own political stance, there are some issues on which he visibly cannot understand why voters would not share his view. It's understandable how a young man who grew up in New York when it was becoming a major haven for crime and saw it reformed significantly under Giuliani could fiercely favor tough penalties for criminals. But not many people find acting as a defense attorney for defendants later found guilty as morally reprehensible as actually committing the crimes. Some people, astonishingly, actually support the need for everyone to have a competent defense.
We read a lot about Stephen Marks' sex life during his time as an OR, vaguely under the umbrella of his woeful laments about sinking into sex addiction and distancing himself from genuine intimacy with someone he could have cared about. Once, this is relevant- in regard to an ex-girlfriend who begins to stalk him and interfere with his work. A second time, we can let it go- the title has "Confessions" in it; we're reading a slice of the author's life, and hey, sex sells, right?... But eventually, even if one were in a bar, you would be inclined to ask, "Excuse me, are you *bragging*?"
It is perhaps inevitable that, as a former Opposition Researcher, Marks may significantly misconstrue both the value of opposition research, the importance of "Oppo Men" to a political campaign, the role of negative campaigning in politics, and the value or harm done by that campaigning both to the campaign and to society as a whole. Naturally, Marks finds researchers like himself crucial and their work both critical to campaign success and beneficial to the public. Again, one glances back in the very same book at the list of losing campaigns, the issues that were non-starters, the good people brought low by pandering to the basest prejudices and self-interest... And smiles and nods at that guy at the bar, trying to think how to extricate oneself.
Marks believes that his work changed how he looked at things; perhaps it did. But it didn't do enough to give him the objectivity that would give this work lasting value. And he still defends negative campaigning without so much as a sideways glance at the question of whether its practice consistently refines the candidates or simply demeans them. He cites Vanderbilt Professor John Geer, who asks if one would buy a car without knowing about its problems. But he fails to consider that people, unlike cars, can learn from their past errors and improve.
One finds oneself wishing for a ghost writer to temper the author's experience with some much-needed perspective. But in fairness, a competent writer might have pruned what has been offered to an unsellable length. As for myself, I'll still hope someone might one day write that good book about working in opposition research.

It was a quick, easy and entertaining read. I wouldn't call it a literary masterpiece, but it was worth reading. I'm glad I did.

The loss of a couple of stars comes from the fact that much of the "logic" appeared to be extremely flawed. Many times, his targets were judged guilty of improprieties for doing things that quite frankly are commonly accepted business practices and not particularly unethical or improper. And although Marks now claims to be a centrist, in many respects he remains far right and lacks objectivity. Some of his conclusions put this fact center stage.

The other issue I had relates to my frustration with people that must classify everyone and everything as either conservative or liberal. The world just isn't so simple - even if the book is.

Fun read, but now back to the serious stuff.

With his 2007 autobiography CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, former Republican operative Stephen Marks details his career examining public records of politicians in order to derail their electoral campaigns. Drawing on a decade of personal experience and a lifetime of observations, author Marks makes a strong case for negative campaigning as the best bet to swing fence-sitters to vote for your candidate. A year in advance of it happening, for example, the author correctly predicts Barack Obama's opponents using the Illinois Senator's outspoken minister against him.

It may interest you to note Stephen Marks does not mention publicly-financed campaigns or instant run-off voting as solutions to the problems of today's moneyed interests-controlled elections. Perhaps he could study states and cities where public election financing or I.R.V. is the law to see if negative ads still affect vote counts.

Throughout CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, Stephen Marks refers to political discourse as liberal left versus conservative right. In reality, the wealthy minority's efforts to supersede the middle class/poor majority are what drives political affairs. History is nothing more than the affluent stealing from and dominating the masses.

Often appearing to be a Republican Party sycophant in CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, Stephen Marks:

- regarding the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says, "those on the left actually root for . . . America's defeat." However, author Marks does not support that claim with the name of even one political progressive who ever said such a thing.

- supports the Clinton Administration's Republican-esque Welfare "reform" that forced single mothers to work, ignoring the fact that the majority of Welfare beneficiaries are children.

- says Christie Whitman was an "enormously popular New Jersey governor." As Whitman barely won her 1997 re-election against Jim McGreevey, does that sound like someone enormously popular with Garden State voters?

- subscribes to Orwellian definitions of terms such as "liberal" and "welfare." The former means "tolerant," and the latter "wellbeing," but CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN uses the words as if they mean the opposite.

- says Reverend Al Sharpton once said, "Off the pigs," a declaration the activist never made.

- describes himself as conservative yet speaks highly of the ayatollah-friendly, borrow-and-spend-America-into-debt Ronald Reagan.

- does not raise the fact that George W. Bush broke his 2000 campaign promise not to nation-build and says nothing about the debt into which Bush has borrowed and spent America. Last time I checked, conservatives do not support conquering other countries or spending on credit.

- objects to paroling prisoners, yet is silent on the fact that convicted felon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a free man. America has more people in prison than China and Russia combined; is author Marks aware of that, and does he think its enormous prison population makes America, land of the free, a better place?

You will find a number of typographical errors in CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, and to me such proofreading errors symbolize a work still in progress. Not the book, though; rather, author Stephen Marks. Despite sounding like the AM-talk radio listener you avoid after making the mistake of sitting near him on the train once, at times Stephen Marks' words show a man reconsidering his beliefs and actions. For example, he comes out against the baloney that is "tort reform," which in reality is a gift to insurance companies and corporations that destroy people's lives. He rejects the anti-immigration hysteria Republicans use to divide and conquer voters. Also, author Marks expresses empathy for poor and working-class individuals whose lack of education does not afford them the opportunity to earn a decent living; he never reaches the conclusion that no American who works for a living should be poor, however.

Okay, so that's only three things versus the eight Republican Kool-Aid statements I refuted above, and there were other hard-line G.O.P. comments I didn't mention for the sake of keeping this review shorter than the actual book. But no one changes overnight, or even in the time it takes to write an autobiography.

Read CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN. Stephen Marks' legwork and ability to recognize politically-damaging information will impress you almost as much as his will to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Marks has progressed from a lucrative career in "dirty politics" to one of attempting to make a few more bucks by exploiting his inside knowledge about how he carried out his job. Once he has finished hawking his book we all know what he will go back to doing. How do we know? Nowhere in the book is there any hint of a sincere apology, unlike the case of Lee Atwater, who prior to his demise confessed his crimes and then asked for forgiveness from all the people he hurt.

I recommend this book, if you REALLY want to find out the tricks of the political trade. It can get seedy out there, but don't you want to know, so you can make informed decisions on candidates? I sure did. : )