INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — For all their efforts standing anonymously behind camcorders, smartphones and other devices at campaign stops in the last half dozen years, political trackers seem to make the most news when they become the focus.
The benchmark for success was set in 2006, when Democratic operative S.R. Sidarth captured former U.S. Sen. George Allen referring to him as a “macaca,” a term that is considered an ethnic disparagement in some cultures. The word earned Allen that “former” in front of his title and launched a wave of trackers across the nation.
Kurt Holland became the latest tracker to make the news last week when The Indianapolis Star reported he followed Marion County Judge Jose Salinas from an event after confusing him with Democratic Senate candidate Joe Donnelly. Salinas called the police on Holland, and the GOP tracker later explained he was being paid by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to follow Donnelly.
Trackers are out-in-the-open spies sent by political parties to watch opponents at campaign stops. Their hope: to catch them in an unbelievable gaffe that will allow the opposition to label them a bigot, socialist or some other degrading term.
“I didn’t like it. I felt dirty, I felt scummy. I felt like I was just lowering my morals,” Holland said of the five weeks or so he spent trailing Donnelly. “I just don’t like the idea of sneaking around, and I did not find it honorable.”
After the house call from the police, Holland said he quit the job.
Holland is an atypical tracker. The 45-year-old Fishers resident said he hung up his job as a special education worker as budget constraints pushed more of the work out to contractors and the stress of the job grew. Holland, who has spent roughly two decades working for Republican candidates, said he didn’t realize what he was signing up for when he accepted the job trailing Donnelly.
The typical tracker tends to be roughly half Holland’s age and has few qualms about being aggressive.
A tracker working for the Indiana Democratic Party was kicked out of McFarling Foods in Indianapolis as he waited for Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock to appear last month. Mourdock has previously complained about Democratic trackers waiting for him outside his Darmstadt home.
Republicans, Holland said, feel like they have to track Democrats because Democrats track Republicans. Ironically, one of the most vociferous tea party candidates to win in 2010 found a way to calm down a Democratic tracker last month.
Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West, whose combative style in Congress and assertions that some Democrats in the U.S. House are communists have made him a top target for Democrats, took a somewhat measured approach with a Democratic tracker who pressed him after an event last month.
As the tracker pressed West on Medicare, West placed his hand on the tracker’s shoulder and reversed the discussion, saying questions should be pointed at a Democratic super PAC opposing him.
The aggression is troubling, but it shouldn’t deter politicians from making public appearances, Donnelly said.
“If you view it that way, then people doing that are being successful at what they do,” he said. That new aggression from trackers hired by both parties, Donnelly said, reminds him of the vitriol and threats he faced from tea partyers who attended his public town halls in 2009 during the health care debate.
Indiana Republican Party spokesman Pete Seat, who Holland says was his direct boss, called Holland’s decision to trail Salinas a “mistake.” He noted that any tracker should be doing what a journalist would do: follow candidates to public events and record what they say.
“Nowadays, with the way technology is, everyone to some degree is a tracker,” Seat said. “They can easily from their iPad record a YouTube video and post it to their web page in minutes ”
What they’re all after, of course, is The Moment: a statement so shocking that it can flip an election on its head, one Allen, the Virginia Republican, knows all too well.
His moment came when he singled out a volunteer of Indian ancestry who was working for his opponent, Jim Webb.
“My friends, we are going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas. And it’s important that we motivate and inspire people for something,” Allen said in the famous 2006 clip, as the crowd cheered. “This fellow over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is, he’s with my opponent and he’s following us around everywhere.”
“So welcome, let’s give a welcome to macaca here. Welcome to America, and the real world of Virginia,” Allen said.
Posted on YouTube, video of the comment became an online hit and was grist for news reports and television comedians for weeks. Allen is still apologizing for that gaffe as he runs for the Senate again.
Trackers haven’t caught any Hoosier candidates on tape using ethnic slurs as they race toward the November elections, but Allen might be the first to tell them that a few months can be a lifetime in politics.
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Follow Tom LoBianco on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/tomlobianco
