Freedonia is the mythical country in the 1933 Marx Brothers film "Duck Soup". In this episode, Santos complains that political discourse has fallen so low that when one politician was asked recently about the "situation in Freedonia", he claimed he was "studying it".
A similar situation had happened in real life. In the 1990s, a satirical magazine called Spy pulled a practical joke, in which they got several Congressional members to issue statements condemning the ethnic cleansing in Freedonia.
The scene where Santos staffers dress up as chickens to heckle Russell and Hoynes for not including him in the debates is based on an actual incident. When then-sitting President George H.W. Bush refused to debate Bill Clinton in 1992, Clinton called him 'Chicken George.' Subsequently, similar men appeared at Bush's rallies in such a costume.
The New Hampshire scenes (for this episode and Opposition Research) were shot in Stouffville, Ontario, just north of Toronto Canada.