Tracking The Trackers

When I saw this headline--"Collins says 'tracker' got in her face"--I figured some overzealous Allen campaign operative had crossed the line, invading the junior senator's personal space during a public event.

But when you read the article, it quickly becomes clear that nothing anywhere near objectionable occurred.

Because (shame, Press Herald) the article doesn't deliver what its headline promises: There isn't any allegation that anyone "got in [Collins'] face."

All that's alleged, by Collins' Chief of Staff Steve Abbott, is that the very presence of a video tracker "demean[s] the political process" and that the Democratic party tracker got "too close" to Collins when she was talking to constituents.

Abbott never defines "too close"--but, tellingly, elsewhere he criticizes the tracker for standing "five feet away." The tracker maintains that he stayed out of Collins' personal space.

Look, I'm sympathetic to the notion that pols deserve not privacy in public, but a freedom from the kind of close-range hectoring that can border on harassment. (I'm not a fan of trying to shout down politicians during speeches, for example.)

But this isn't that. What we're talking about, instead, is the documenting of a public event.

The Collins camp is free to try to spin the very act of recording her discussions with voters as some kind of invasion. And I can understand why the junior senator might not want her public comments recorded.

But that doesn't mean her political opponents should go along with her attempt to keep Mainers in the dark about her thinking on the most pressing issues of the day.

UPDATE: Over at Maine Web Report, Collins operative Lance Dutson goes to hilarious lengths to try to make the Democratic party tracker's behavior seem ominous. But the proof is in the photo Dutson runs, which shows the tracker a good, safe distance from the junior senator.

Take a peek—-if only for the humor value.

Let me be clear: If bands of radical left, foul-mouthed, extremist hatemongers start stalking the junior senator--in public or private--I'll be sure to call them out. But at least for the moment, Dutson's paranoia isn't warranted.