Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

6 September 2014

In Amanda v. America Rising, the tracker is winning

It’s official, admits Amanda Curtis’ spokesman Les Braswell. Her campaign is blocking video trackers — sticking campaign signs in front of America Rising tracker Brian O’Leary’s lens and such — and doing so with the full knowledge and support of Curtis, reports the Associated Press’ Matt Brown:

Curtis told The Associated Press that the unusual blocking efforts by her supporters were a distraction necessitated by O’Leary’s increasingly aggressive behavior.

“I was recently at the Labor Day picnic in Great Falls and he was going so far as trying to position himself in between a voter and myself,” she said. “I appreciate a little bubble. We all have this personal space, and I deserve mine.”

Curtis’ wanting to campaign in a bubble is only part of the reason for her campaign’s anti-tracker policy. Her staff, knowing how green she is, fear she may go off script, embarrassing herself as she provides ammunition for negative advertisements by the opposition.

Unless O’Leary stands behind the crowd, he’ll come between Curtis and a voter, so it’s not clear how close to Curtis O’Leary was. Curtis would be wise to put a tracker on the tracker to provide objective evidence of O’Leary’s behavior.

But it is clear that she’s not ready for prime time if a video tracker can provoke her into retreating into a bubble and cause her staff, friends, and family to behave like schoolyard bullies. The Labor Day picnic was not the first time this happened.

Apart from the unpleasant jousting at campaign events, the campaign’s confrontation policy will have other adverse effects. There will be less advance of notice of events on her website and Facebook page, possibly leading to smaller crowds. Moreover, it’s likely that at some point Braswell and his buddies will evict or mess with supporters and/or reporters with cameras, with obvious adverse consequences.

Instead of spending their time getting in the face of O’Leary, who ought to behave like a fly on the wall, Curtis’ campaign staff should be working the crowd, recruiting volunteers.

In her excellent National Journal article on trackers, Emma Roller reported that America Rising’s co-founder, Tim Miller, believes that giving video trackers the heave-ho is a pretty low down priority for a campaign:

Miller worked as Jon Huntsman’s press secretary during Huntsman’s 2008 campaign for president, so he knows the other side of tracking. While Huntsman’s advance staff would sometimes try to shoo away trackers from Democratic organizations, those higher up in the campaign didn’t care as much about their presence.

“I do think that the press people’s initial instinct is to be hostile,” Miller said. “It’s more trouble than it’s worth to be wasting a staffer’s time trying to kick out a tracker when they should be signing up volunteers.”