The Shields and Cragan work in their longitudinal study(not be completed until 2008) is really about Public Relations and smearing. For a quick review of how the technique works, consider the legend of LBJ,who supposedly decided to spread a rumor that his opponent was a pig-f****r. LBJ's campaign manager said, "Lyndon, you know he doesn't do that!" Johnson replied, "I know. I just want to make him deny it."
With that in mind:
In email, KagroX has suggested that it would be "it would be very, very interesting to research the list of Democrats and Google for articles on those investigations to see if the people under investigation ever commented to the press that they're the targets of a partisan witch hunt, or some such similar thing."
We'd like to do just that.
The point is not that they were investigated, but that they felt that they were being targeted because they were Democrats.
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