Promise and peril of video trackers

In this too-much-information age, you could make a pretty strong argument that the most important person on a campaign team is the one wielding the video camera.

The tracker -- a staffer assigned to trail someone’s opponent, in hopes of catching a gaffe of career-ending proportions -- rose to fame in 2006, when GOP Sen. George Allen of Virginia publicly called an Indian American Democratic tracker a “macaca” -- a derisive racial epithet -- and then lost his reelection bid.

More recently, a tracker for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid captured Republican Senate hopeful Sue Lowden advocating “bartering” for healthcare. Her subsequent attempts to defend the poor choice of words -- particularly by evoking the days when you’d “bring a chicken to the doctor” -- helped bring down her nascent primary campaign. Once the clear favorite, she lost to “tea party” supporter Sharron Angle.

Trackers have proved so useful that the Democratic National Committee recently launched a website encouraging submissions of “macaca moments” from pretty much anyone with a recording device.

A Democrat, however, was recently the target of a tracker in Nevada: Rep. Dina Titus, who represents a Las Vegas-area district in economic shambles.

At one of Titus’ Congress on the Corner events -- in which she props up a folding table and listens to constituent woes -- a young woman plopped down, raised a hand-held video camera and asked Titus whether she’d vote for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to retain her leadership position.

The entire room -- Titus, a handful of staffers, at least a dozen constituents -- froze. The woman, who said she lived in a different Nevada congressional district, kept repeating the question in the syrupy tone of a preschool teacher.

The constituents fumed and started heckling the amateur videographer.

A stone-faced Titus told the woman that she needed to reserve her time for constituents. Soon, the tracker sprinted off. She had captured what she perhaps came for: Titus not answering a question on camera.

If the crowd’s agitated whispers -- and later comments about “that rude girl” -- indicated anything, it was this: A tracker’s video might sway elections. But her mere presence won’t necessarily win votes.

ashley.powers@ latimes.com

Top of the Ticket, The Times’ blog on national politics (www.latimes.com /ticket) is a blend of commentary, analysis and news. This is a selection from the last week.