NYT: Trailing G.O.P. With Cameras, Seeking Gaffes

[Generic Other]

AMHERST, N.H. — Aaron Fielding quietly stalks his prey — Republicans — with his video camera, patiently waiting for a political moment worthy of YouTube.

At 27, he is a full-time “tracker” for American Bridge 21st Century, a new Democratic organization that aims to record every handshake, every utterance by Republican candidates in 2011 and 2012, looking for gotcha moments that could derail political ambitions or provide fodder for television advertisements by liberal groups next year.

The organization has hired a dozen professional trackers like Mr. Fielding, outfitted them with the latest high-tech cameras and computers and positioned them in key states where Republican candidates are busy chattering away to voters. If all works as planned, incriminating moments captured by American Bridge will quickly become part of the political bloodstream.

Combined with a team of 20 researchers in a Washington “war room” that has a large rack of computer servers, the effort is part of a push by Democratic groups to bolster their opposition research. Republicans also have trackers, but so far have not assembled the kind of centralized video archive of political caught-on-tape moments that their rivals envision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/us/politics/09trackers.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

Effort for Liberal Balance to G.O.P. Groups Begins

In what may prove a significant development for the 2012 elections, David Brock, a prominent Democratic political operative, says he has amassed $4 million in pledges over the last few weeks and is moving quickly to hire a staff to set up what he hopes will become a permanent liberal counterweight over the airwaves to the Republican-leaning outside groups that spent so heavily on this year’s midterm elections.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former Maryland lieutenant governor and the eldest of Robert F. Kennedy’s 11 children, has agreed to serve as the chairwoman of the group, which will be called American Bridge, lending to the still extremely nascent undertaking the weight of what remains one of the most significant families in Democratic politics.

Leading Democratic donors who have already pledged money to the group include Rob McKay, heir to the Taco Bell fortune and chairman of the Democracy Alliance, a partnership of wealthy liberal donors; Robert Dyson, who heads Dyson-Kissner-Moran, a takeover and acquisitions firm in New York City; and Marcia L. Carsey, a television producer who gave $1 million to Democratic outside groups in 2004.

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The moves by Mr. Brock in recent weeks make his the most concrete effort so far on the part of Democratic activists to establish some kind of centralized structure that they hope will become the left’s answer in 2012 to such groups on the right as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads and others, which significantly outspent Democratic-leaning outside groups this year. It is too early to say whether Mr. Brock’s group will emerge as the go-to vehicle for giant contributions on the left.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/us/politics/23money.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. wArniNg to rEpuBliConS: Don't get caught having adulterous diaper sex with a hooker

Oh wait, excuse me, I forgot. It's okay if your a republicon.

[pansypoo53219]

2. BUT NOBODY PAYS ANY ATTENTION TIL THE CONVENTIONS.

pointless.