Three apparent firsts today in the 2012 congressional season: two statewide constitutional officers made their first endorsements, a video tracker showed up to record an opponent’s event, and a worker for the candidate being tracked responded with sufficient childishness to become part of the story.
The campaign of Elizabeth Esty dispatched a young intern with a digital camera to record Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and Comptroller Kevin Lembo saying really nice things about House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, her rival for the Democratic nomination in the 5th CD.
A young man who identified himself as Rob, a worker for Donovan’s campaign, stood in front of the tracker’s camera. The tracker moved. So did Rob.
Um, dude, you’re in my shot.
Why? He declined to say why he didn’t want the Esty campaign to have a video record of how nice Merrill and Lembo were being to his boss, Donovan.
Jeb Fain, an Esty spokesman who has been a tracker, tried to capitalize on the mini-drama by suggesting that Donovan is ill-equipped to confront Republicans in Congress if he can’t handle a kid with a video camera.
Back to the endorsements. Merrill, the former House majority leader, praised Donovan’s progressive politics, while Lembo talked about Donovan’s leadership on health reforms.
The setting was the Pulaski Democratic Club, which was decked out with paper hearts for Valentine’s Day. Very festive. You could feel the love.
Now, if Rob and the kid with the camera can just work things out.