The most influential people in a political race aren"t the campaign managers, the strategists or even the candidates themselves. In fact, you won"t even find them on a campaign"s list of official members or volunteers. Enter the world of the political hitman. Few know that these operatives exist, and campaigns go to great effort to distance themselves from the people who dig up their dirt. But political hitmen wield a secretly powerful position in today"s American politics, where scandals derail campaigns and negative campaigning decides who gets elected and who doesn"t. For the past twelve years, Stephen Marks has worked silently behind the scenes as one of the country"s top opposition researchers: a political hitman and an assassin of reputations. Confessions of a Political Hitman is Marks"s intensely personal and explosive story through more than a decade in the underbelly of American political campaigns. From his early days in politics through his rapid movement into the secret world of opposition research, Marks discovers a talent for digging up dirt and uncovering political liabilities. His work involves a wide scope of American politics, from state governments to presidential elections to the Republican Revolution. But the exciting work soon leads to disillusionment as candidates he believed in turn out to be worse than expected, and hypocrisy abounds on both sides of the political fence. Eventually Marks finds himself living in the shadows, both politically and personally, and searching for escape. In Confessions of a Political Hitman, Marks reveals the fascinating and incredible details of what really goes on behind the scenes in American campaigning-including the political realities behind the campaigns, careers and attack ads of some of Washington"s heavy hitters, including George W. Bush, John Kerry, Jack Abramoff and countless others. Confessions of a Political Hitman is one man"s story about secrets, lies, hypocrisy and influence-painting a troubling picture of whom we elect and how they get elected.