The file cabinet was in the DNC’s Watergate office on June 17, 1972, the fateful day when five people were arrested for burglarya crime that would lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
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Nearly 43 years later, a team of 20 Democratic staffers are working three floors above where the filing cabinet now stands, compiling opposition research on the more than two dozen Republicans who have expressed interest in running for the presidency. Just blocks away, a team of Republican researchers is doing the same thing — with a specific emphasis on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The difference in what the DNC and RNC aides are doing now and what happened in 1972 is that today’s research activities are legal.
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“We’re the only ones who can actually communicate with the eventual nominee, and we’re really the ones who are going to help define who the Republican candidates are long before we have a nominee,” Elleithee said. “But once we do, we’ll be working hand and glove with them to make sure that the work that we’ve been doing for the past couple of years is helpful to their eventual campaign.”
Expect the RNC to do the same.
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