The Trouble with Ribble

Reid Ribble is a freshman congressman who represents my old home district, the 8th District of Wisconsin. He's also being stalked by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The invaluable Wisconsin-based blogger Kevin Binversie has the details:

This appar­ently is Cong. Reid Ribble’s house.

It was posted on YouTube by the DCCC’s video tracker assigned by the com­mit­tee to watch the Con­gress­man and try to get embar­rass­ing remarks at pub­lic events.

THIS…isn’t a pub­lic event.

You can see the video at the link. It's 38 seconds long and shows the house at various angles. It's a nice house and appears to be on a lake, but it's hardly a palatial estate. It would be a boathouse for a lot of Democratic reps. But there's no reason for me to know whose house it is.

Binversie picks up his report from Politico, which explains the rationale, in a manner of speaking:

While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see.

I have no issue with tracking public appearances. At no point during the course of this video do you see Cong. Ribble or anyone else. Just the house. What is the purpose?

Binversie, who worked on Ron Johnson's successful Senate campaign in the last cycle, has the same question:

As a for­mer polit­i­cal researcher, I under­stand the need for tracker footage.  It’s often there where you’re going to get things you never thought you might get else where in more…scripted parts of the cam­paign. (See: Macaca Moment, George Allen.)

But there ought to be a line.  What’s next, video of these guys drop­ping their kids off at school appear­ing under a DCCC — spon­sored account on YouTube?  We never went to this level in the John­son cam­paign, and frankly, I would have felt dirty if we did.

Frankly, video such as the one of the Rib­ble home crosses the line into stalk­ing, crim­i­nally or oth­er­wise.  As for fol­low­ing the man while he’s gro­cery shop­ping, what the hell was the point there?  Video of the guy buy­ing his Chee­rios have some polit­i­cal ben­e­fit I’ve never thought of before?

I think it's worth asking Jamie Wall, Ribble's opponent, what he thinks of this sort of behavior. In fact, I have -- I have sent an email expressing my concerns to his campaign and have offered the campaign a chance to respond. If Mr. Wall or his campaign responds to my request, I'll share the response here in full. But I'd also encourage anyone who reads this blog to ask Mr. Wall to make the same request that I've made -- to denounce this sort of thing in no uncertain terms. You can reach Mr. Wall's campaign at his website. If you do send a note, please be polite, but be firm. This sort of thing needs to stop.