Campaigning is no picnic. We've done our share, and honestly we were never good at the retail politicking. Knocking on someone's door like a Jehovah's Witness or a vacuum cleaner salesman wasn't our favorite. We always preferred the bigger aspects of running for office: mailers, robocalls, media interviews, and meeting people at every non-political event we could find...
Of course, we were never bigtime, so exposure was never a problem for us. The major candidates are always under a microscope. We might have said something stupid once or twice on the trail, but the media were never around to catch it - plus it was just before Facebook, Twitter or even YouTube took off. But in today's viral age, assholes with a recorder or camera are EVERYWHERE.
Yes, a bad moment at a 'partisan' event can ruin any campaign... Ask former Virginia Senator George Allen. His 'Macaca' moment is forever engrained as the classic Oops Moment on camera in recent political history. The rule of thumb is if something works once, do it over and over again, because lightning often does strike twice in politics...
It's pretty simple. Campaigns or parties find a college intern who generally doesn't know jack shit about politics, and make him follow an opponent wherever they go on the campaign trail. Like we said, they're usually kids, so most don't even know what they're looking for, much less what they're taping. So, the campaign gives them a list of key words to look for, and try to mark when it was said. Armed with this, the intern goes out on the trail, and tapes endless hours of junk - trying to find the ten second snippet that will submarine their opponent. Call it the political needle in the haystack..
No, any paid political staffer would never waste hours of their time taping and going through this crap for probably nothing - but that's precisely what interns are for. They're just so jacked to be there, they'll do anything... I guess it beats making coffee or stuffing envelopes, but if it were us, our answer would be 'You're kidding, right?' . Then again, we never were good soldiers....
However, much like the Wildcat Offense, eventually the surprise is gone, and the candidates get hip to the trick. Even George Allen, who despite being taped at EVERY event he has in this year's run for Senator against Tim Kaine, has yet to be caught on tape doing anything stupid again... Hey, maybe that envelope stuffing job is more useful after all!
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