How do you spot a campaign tracker (someone watching for gaffes) if they don’t wear name tags?
According to the staff of California Republican congressional candidate Carl DeMaio, you should be on the look out for young black people who talk to you.
Specifically, the campaign manager, Tommy Knepper, said in an email exchange on April 19 obtained by The Washington Examiner, that possible trackers could be spotted if they’re young, African American, young and at a Saturday morning event, or very talkative to staffers.
[...]
1. Young-red flag
2. black-red flag
3. young at saturday morning event-HUGE red flag
4. Very curious and want to talk to staff a a lot-red flag
To put it another way, if a black person attends your weekend campaign event and asks questions about the campaign, that would be a triple “red flag” as a possible tracker. If they’re young and black and they ask questions at your weekend event, they’re almost certainly a tracker.
I just don’t think treating people of color or young people in general as suspicious because they’re at your campaign event is such a good idea if you want them to vote for you.
If you’re so afraid of people who ask a lot of questions, maybe you should come up with better answers.