We're with Nobody Read Online Free Page A

politicians rattling their chains without having thought through the whole idea—and without understanding that longtime incumbents work hard to remain longtime incumbents.
    The initial response from the ex on the front porch is a great start. But I need considerably more detail to go along with her most eloquent string of profanities. If we don’t have documentation, we have nothing. I know that her ex-husband likely isn’t a true “cocksucker,” and if he were, that wouldn’t be a crime. Even a congressman busted for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom can walk away with only a disorderly conduct conviction under his belt.
    The point is just to keep the conversation flowing, to keep asking questions and always, always show interest in the answers, even if they are of little value. For more than a decade as newspaper reporters, Alan and I asked questions—a seemingly endless string of questions that sometimes led to great stories, but more often than not simply retrieved the information needed to meet a deadline and please an editor. The ability to always be the asker and never the answerer is a powerful thing. To always get and never give may seem selfish to some, but offering information to gain information diminishes its value and weakens the interviewer. Questions are a companion; they are a friend. And the more ways you know how to ask them, the more successful you will be.
    Unfortunately, in this case, the front porch interview isn’t going very far. It’s not because she doesn’t want to offer as much as she can; it’s because she just doesn’t know that much about the man. His business dealings are a mystery to her. His political affairs are an unknown. She knew him as a husband only, and now she despises him.
    â€œSo when you say he’s a ‘cocksucker,’ I’m just guessing you’re talking about your marriage?”
    And then she begins. Yes, she is referring to her marriage. Yes, he was the shittiest, most ill-tempered husband on the face of the earth. Yes, he had put business and politics before her. And yes, he had left her and started seeing another, younger, woman. That little piece of trash, as she refers to her.
    It was not a lot of useable information, but enough to keep going. “Can you tell me anything about her? About their relationship?”
    They now live together, she tells me. The girlfriend doesn’t work, doesn’t have children. They travel a lot, go to places he never took her when they were married. She resents him for all of it. Fury tempered by hatred.
    â€œAnything else?”
    â€œOh yeah,” she says, almost as an afterthought, “I think he was arrested for beating her up.”
    These are the moments when a pause is not only mandatory; it is involuntary. It gives you time to take a deep breath and let the words wrap themselves around you. You betray no excitement, no indication that the statement has any more meaning than any other. Reactions are contagious; they have the potential to frighten and shut down the recipient. So I just stare down at my notepad and jot the words “assault” and “arrested.” I scribble a big star to the side.
    â€œSo, what was that all about?” I ask in near monotone, still looking down. “Was there anything to that?”
    She proceeds to tell me that the couple was going on a vacation when the incident supposedly occurred. She doesn’t know where they were going, somewhere out West she thinks, but says he “slapped her around” in an airport en route. I gently probe for additional details, but she doesn’t have much else. She must have recognized that the information held some value because she then asks if it is something I think I can use. I tell her it’s possible, but that I’m not sure.
    But that isn’t true. I am sure.
    Polling is the lifeblood of any well-funded political campaign. The information