The current wave of scandal swirling around newly elected New York Representative Republican George Santos has political insiders from both parties asking how he made it through election season without being exposed as a serial fabricator.
The initial finding looks as if the culprit is a lack of follow-through, not a lack of research.
As with all major congressional GOP candidates, the Democratic party put out an opponent's "book" out on him to identify his weaknesses as a candidate.
According to a New York Times editorial written by Democratic operative Tyson Brody, the "book" on Santos had many personal areas to attack, including residential rental evictions, an unidentifiable animal charity that supposedly rescued pets, and unfounded records of enrollment at Baruch College in New York City.
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Despite this low-hanging fruit, Santos wasn't picked off early because of a lack of follow through, argues Brody, who also notes that Democratic opposition researchers got off to a late start in researching Santos' background.
Additionally, Brody argues that while Democratic opposition researchers uncovered many clues, they could not have anticipated the sheer scope of Santos' deception.
"Could Mr. Santos’s opponent and Democratic operatives have pursued this story harder and found out much more? I can imagine why that didn’t happen," he writes. "We’re talking about what appeared to be résumé embellishment, evictions and legal liabilities. These are not always shocking things on their own in politics; it’s the extent of Mr. Santos’s apparent false claims that’s highly unusual."
