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Find a local party organization or candidate and start researching. Pick research targets and start looking for bad stuff. Collect and file away for future use unflattering newspaper articles, financial disclosure statements, campaign finance reports, and other source documents. Think like a combination of detective, investigative reporter, prosecutor, and campaign adman.

Most bad stuff about public officials and candidates falls into three categories: (1) bad personal conduct, like DUIs, not paying child support, credible and damaging material in lawsuits, unpaid debts, etc.; (2) abuse of office and questionable favors for oneself and for friends and political supporters; and (3) conservative vs. liberal policy matters, like taxes, spending, and other issues.

Be creative in what you look for. One Congressional race that I know of tilted to the conservative Republican because an outside conservative group slammed the liberal Democrat candidate for her out of control local spending, which ranged from an over budget, badly managed courthouse project to a brass statue of a frog that cost nearly $20,000. The frog was a vanity project for a fellow county commissioner, and a picture of it made a nice visual complement to the elaborate new courthouse, suggesting that the courthouse project was out of control because spending at all levels was out of control.

In time, even if no one does much to teach you, you will learn how to do opposition research by doing it and gradually getting better at it.