{"id":12745,"date":"2010-08-19T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=12745"},"modified":"2010-08-18T11:40:41","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T16:40:41","slug":"schnauzers-with-monopods-and-serious-cases-of-projection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=12745","title":{"rendered":"Schnauzers With Monopods (And Serious Cases Of Projection)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I remember meeting my first “tracker”. \u00a0It was at the “Patriot Picnic” at Boom Island Park in 2006. \u00a0We had then-House-candidate Michele Bachmann and Senate candidate Mark Kennedy on the show. \u00a0The “tracker” was a surly, scrawny little guy whose demeanor screamed “latt\u00e9-drinking, Ben Folds-listening, someday-Smart-Car-buying Macalester Anthropology major who needs a crap job real <\/em>bad”. \u00a0He put his camera up on a tripod and stood, surly and,oddly, ostentatious in his attempts to remain unostentatious, at the front of the audience tent (it was 101 that day), silently filming everything every Republican said.<\/p>\n

It was hard not to mock the guy; every time we went to the audience for questions, I’d ask the poor, sweaty, underemployed little nipper if he had any. \u00a0“Not at this time”, he’d intone, not breaking his focus.<\/p>\n

Mr. Cranky was the first tracker I ever met – but far from the last. \u00a0The DFL has trackers – either employees, or their de facto <\/em>employees at “The Uptake” and The Minnesota “Independent”<\/em> – in attendance whenever a GOP candidate appears in public, taping glumly away. \u00a0The GOP, naturally, returns the favor. \u00a0They do it because every once in a while they catch a candidate saying “let’s stick it to those morons in Bemidji” while speaking in Bloomington, and “let’s stick it to those cake-eaters in Bloomington” while speaking in Bemidji.<\/p>\n

Of course, now that Mark Dayton is ostensibly getting out of the “tracker” business (at least, on his direct payroll; the Uptake, the Mindy <\/em>and the rest of the leftyblogs that take their orders from the DFL are still on the job), suddenly “trackers” are the next great crisis in Minnesota politics, according to…Democrats.<\/p>\n

“Spotty” from Caulking Tool <\/em>turns\u00a0t his crack investigative skills onto the GOP <\/em>trackers<\/a>. \u00a0He complains that the trackers got too close to Dayton. \u00a0I can see both sides of that one; they do <\/em>get close. \u00a0They have <\/em>to; Dayton mumbles like he’s got a mouthful of garlic toast. \u00a0There’s no point in “tracking” if you can’t hear what’s being said!<\/span><\/p>\n

But that’s not really the fun part:<\/span><\/p>\n

As Dayton points out, and as at least one commenter in the Strib comments affirms [A commenter in the Strib “affirms” it? \u00a0Why not the guy yelling at his shadow on the 16 bus, while you’re at it? \u00a0Wow, that’s a stringent standard of evidence! – Ed<\/em>], it\u2019s the voter intimidation that\u2019s the real problem. Many people simply don\u2019t want to be captured on video and have it appear on the web. It\u00a0is<\/strong>harassment to keep these people from talking to a candidate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Democrat voters must be the biggest pack of pansies in the world. \u00a0It’s one thing that “Bad weather favors the GOP” is truism in Minnesota politics; whatever. \u00a0But anyone who gets “intimidated” by a 100-pound twenty-something girl with a flipcam \u00a0needs to face the spirit \u00a0of guy who charged across Omaha Beach to defend <\/em>that right to vote, and explain why they are such a bunch of simpering wastes of time and effort.<\/p>\n

And remember – the Dems have their cameras in the GOPers’ faces too!<\/em> And yet you don’t hear us mewling about “intimidation”. \u00a0And our trackers at least take showers.<\/p>\n

But here’s the real fun part; “Spotty” – an adult who blogs under a nom de plume, apparently\u00a0because\u00a0he writes things that he doesn’t want associated with his real identity, called his post “Chihuahuas with Flipcams”. \u00a0And he wrote (with emphasis added):<\/p>\n

When he came to DL, Mark Dayton introduced the Republican tracker by name from the stage. The recording of remarks is not the problem here; it\u2019s the intimidation of ordinary citizens<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Intimidation of ordinary citizens”.<\/p>\n

Let’s go back in time to this past April 15. \u00a0I spoke at the Tea Party at the Capitol Grounds. \u00a0I met “Spot”, who was wandering around with a camera, a camera guy, and a microphone interviewing people for “The Uptake”, the lefty video hatchetblog.<\/p>\n

I was wandering about, talking with people,\u00a0when the security people came up to me<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

…the only problem I heard about involved a reporter from \u201cThe Uptake\u201d…Now, [the Uptake “reporter”, who is in fact one and the same person as “Spotty”] interviewed me briefly last year; I never saw his final product, although I was told either his voiceover or his editing really mangled the context of my interview; I wouldn\u2019t know \u2013 I don\u2019t watch the Uptake much. I did another standup with him after I got offstage \u2013 I figure if he and the Uptake want to [mangle the context of] what I said, it says more about him and them than it does about me. He referred to the people around him as \u201ctea-baggers\u201d; I gently corrected him, but I got a sneaking hunch it was a tell as to \u201cthe Uptake\u2019s\u201d overall tone of \u201ccoverage\u201d.<\/p>\n

But shortly after that, a few of the orange-clad security guys came up to me and said they\u2019d been getting complaints about the Uptake\u2019s crew. I asked them for specifics; they took me to a couple that that said the Uptake\u2019s crew hadn\u2019t identified themselves as a \u201cnews\u201d crew that was going to publish an interview online, and that they seemed to be trying to get them to say something stupid, to make them \u2013 Tea Partiers in general, it seemed \u2013 look stupid. The woman said that the \u201creporter\u201d seemed to be trying to pick a fight with her, trying to one-up her on her knowledge of issues; \u201cI\u201dm not an encyclopedia, I can\u2019t answer all the questions he has right away\u201d, she said, still visibly exasperated. Her husband, a Vietnam veteran, echoed his wife\u2019s thoughts; \u201che was trying to pick a fight; he was harassing us\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Intimidation?<\/p>\n

Huh.<\/p>\n

Not sure why the years-old tradition of video trackers is suddenly a DFL chanting point. \u00a0Perhaps Dayton thinks it’s finally the terrorists, come to get him at last?<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember meeting my first “tracker”. \u00a0It was at the “Patriot Picnic” at Boom Island Park in 2006. \u00a0We had then-House-candidate Michele Bachmann and Senate candidate Mark Kennedy on the show. \u00a0The “tracker” was a surly, scrawny little guy whose demeanor screamed “latt\u00e9-drinking, Ben Folds-listening, someday-Smart-Car-buying Macalester Anthropology major who needs a crap job real […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,20,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-democrats","category-lefty-alt-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12755,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions\/12755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}