We’re With Nobody

We’re With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics (HarperCollins, 2012)

We’re With Nobody, coauthored with Michael Rejebian, is an irreverent insider’s view of the opposition research industry, called “oppo” in political circles and dirt-digging elsewhere. The book draws from the authors’ 16 years of dirt digging on political candidates across the United States, from presidential appointees and congressional candidates down to minor candidates for local school boards.

The cast of thousands includes plenty of rogues on both sides of the aisle, including among the authors’ own candidates. We’re with Nobody isn’t a tell-all in the sense of naming names; it’s about the types of characters who seek elected office, what they do to try to get elected, and who tries to stand in the way of anyone who tries to find out. It’s also about the odd lives of two serial troublemakers traveling the backroads of the U.S., discovering what makes the nation’s would-be leaders tick, from the back streets of Jersey City to the high rises of L.A., from Carolina trailer parks to the cornfields of Iowa.

From doing battle with purposefully misleading bureaucrats to sitting on the deck of a trailer interviewing a frightened man who holds a loaded shotgun, to arriving in an unmarked police car for a clandestine meeting with guys in pinstriped suits on the Jersey waterfront, We’re with Nobody takes place entirely behind the scenes, and because the subject is so provocative and darkly humorous, and the book was the first to reveal how opposition research is done, it earned Huffman and Rejebian a spot on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (see the episode here).

For news and updates about We’re with Nobody (which is currently under option for a TV series) and further accounts of the adventures of Huffman and Rejebian as opposition researchers, visit the authors’ Facebook page here. The book’s original trailer is here.