Oh, those poor oppressed politicians. Everyone is always trying to hear what they say when they are out in public – this is no way to conduct a democracy!

For the second time in this campaign, a major candidate for Maine’s highest office has protested the recording of their public appearances – this time it is Libby Mitchell.  The complaint this time?  The RGA’s tracker is (drumroll please) standing too close to the candidate.

Read again – I didn’t say pushing around a candidate, or invading personal space.  Nope, the complaint is that they are too close to the candidate, because they are recording conversations between the candidate and voters. You simply can’t make up this kind of infantile complaint.  From the Kennebec Journal:

[Arden] Manning said photos released by the Mitchell campaign show Ryan Terrill, the Republican Governors Association’s tracker, just a few feet away from Mitchell speaking to potential voters. A Maine Democratic Party news release also said Terrill recorded volunteers holding signs in the Winter Harbor Lobster Festival, even though no gubernatorial candidate was present.

[gasp]

HE IS RECORDING PEOPLE HOLDING SIGNS!  THE SAVAGE BEAST!  WHAT WILL THESE HATEFUL MONSTERS DO NEXT?

Seriously though, Arden Manning‘s complaint boils down to having a problem with a tracker recording a public official (who is currently sitting in an elected capacity in the Maine Senate, by the way) at a public event, talking to the public.

Not to be outdone, Ted O’Meara of the Cutler campaign piled on the issue of tracking:

“It’s a juvenile thing to begin with and it’s the kind of thing that really turns people off to politics, particularly partisan politics,” said Ted O’Meara, campaign manager for Independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler.

Here’s something that turns me off from politics – politicians that try to invent situations that make them look like victims while trying to avoid having their statements in public looked at to see if they hold up to scrutiny.  This is the second time Cutler’s people have tried to make a boogyman out of tracking, and I find it just as repugnant now as I did then.

Imagine Libby Mitchell is walking around to these “intimate crowds” and shaking hands, and a random voter says to her, “thank you for killing that insane paid sick leave bill, I could never support somebody who thought that was a good idea” only to see her say “thank you, I was glad to oppose it” before moving on.  Are you seriously telling me that this kind of two faced political garbage is “out of bounds” simply because she is talking closely to a person rather than making a stump speech?  (Disclaimer:  she has never said that, I am only using it as an example of the political hypocrisy that is all too common on the trail)

Take, for example, the thing that single handedly destroyed what little chance Creigh Deeds of Virginia had in 2009′s gubernatorial race – his confused, rambling, two faced non answer to a reporters question about taxes.  That video was taken by a campaign tracker while Deeds was gaggling with reporters (none of whom had video cameras) in a very close, very intimate setting.  His attempt to evade and dance his on record answer to the taxes question was so bad that Virginia Democrat bloggers were ripping him to shreds over it after the debate.

This kind of stupid political gibberish was exposed because of a tracker doing nothing more than simply being there and recording what the candidate himself was saying.  Nobody in this situation has anything to be sorry for, other than Creigh Deeds for trying to punk out on his answer and have it both ways.  He got busted.

I am up to my ears sick and tired of trackers becoming the political punching bags for Maine politicians of both parties.

Listen people, it is very simple.  If you want to run for office, you are voluntarily submitting yourself to the public.  When you are out on the stump, whether you are shaking hands, at a parade, making a stump speech, or gaggling in public with reporters, you are fair game.  What you say is public information, and anyone has the right to capture that public information.  Just because in the past we haven’t had the technological ability to follow you around easily and take a look at what you say doesn’t mean it is wrong.  James G. Blaine – Maine’s most successful politician (arguably) lost the state of New York and with it the presidency because of what happened in a very small room of people that ended up becoming big news.  That was a low-tech version of campaign tracking, and it is just as appropriate then as it is now.

If you don’t like people scanning what you say and holding you to account for it as you run for election, find another profession.  If you want the freedom to tell different people different things without being caught, stay out of politics.

I realize that in the absence of real negative advertising and muckraking politics in this, the most genial of political states, you feel the need to play the victim and find a foil to boldly fight against, but find it somewhere else.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, has any sympathy for you whining about somebody recording what you are saying in public.

The tracker for the RGA – Ryan Terrill – has been doing absolutely nothing wrong.  He has been present in public events, he has been following the candidate where she goes, he has been recording what she says, he has not been disruptive, and it is laughable to say that he is intimidating anyone (do you want a Governor who is intimidated by a guy with a flip camera who says nothing?).

Arden Manning and the Mitchell campaign are resorting to a pathetic and extremely lame tactic of demonizing Terrill because, apparently, they can’t drum up any press for her sleepy campaign any other way.

And here I thought that Mitchell was running on the not at all two years out of date slogan of “hope over fear“.

Fear of what she actually says in public being recorded, apparently.

EDIT: Jake Randolph makes a great point in the comment section of this article, which I feel is appropriate to include in this story.  He quips about the hypocrisy of Manning and the Maine Democratic Party on the issue of tracking:

Manning and the Maine Democratic Party are being extraordinarily hypocritical on this topic and their memory is conveniently short. Just two years ago, under Manning’s  supervision, the Maine Dems employed two individuals to track Collins who exhibited exactly the behavior Manning is now deriding.

Quote by Manning from the KJ story: “…they try to throw the candidates by having the tracker sort of right there all the time, as opposed to just trying to record a statement, which up until this point tracking has been used for.”

Here’s Rick Redmond, Manning’s first of THREE trackers employed by the Maine Dems in 2008, tracking Susan Collins in August of that year:

Does that look like someone “just trying to record a statement?”

Also from the KJ story: “[Manning] said instructions for any paid Democratic tracker would be to record public comments, never record private conversations, don’t record interviews with reporters, never lie, be respectful, be polite and only record the candidate.”

Focusing on the instruction to “never lie,” does it look Manning’s second tracker from 2008 got that sort of instruction from her boss?

I hope that someone calls out Manning and the Maine Dems for their total hypocrisy on the tracking issue.