FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2012 file photo, Gov. Paul LePage speaks at the swearing in ceremony for new representatives at the State House in Augusta, Maine. As LePage addressed the newly elected Legislature in early December, his frustration with trackers, the video camera-toting operatives who follow politicians around, boiled over into a brief diatribe that set the session off to a sour start. (AP Photo/Joel Page, File)
Campaign tracking becoming year-round practice
FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2012 file photo, Gov. Paul LePage speaks at the swearing in ceremony for new representatives at the State House in Augusta, Maine. As LePage addressed the newly elected Legislature in early December, his frustration with trackers, the video camera-toting operatives who follow politicians around, boiled over into a brief diatribe that set the session off to a sour start. (AP Photo/Joel Page, File)
By GLENN ADAMS
Associated Press /
December 16, 2012
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Nevertheless, the governor demanded that Democrats call off their tracker. They've refused. So in turn, LePage is refusing to sit down with Democratic legislative leaders at a critical time, when the state’s elected leaders need to introduce their plans for the next session to each other.
The back and forth points to one of the negative impacts of tracking, said political science Assistant Professor Christopher Mann at the University of Miami, who questioned whether LePage is using what happened with the tracker as a reason to stop governing.
‘‘That seems like a rather disproportionate reaction,’’ Mann said.
Since then, tracking has become ubiquitous, Mann said.
The practice ‘‘is really just a new media reality that we’re living,’’ said Democratic strategist Colin Rogero of Revolution Media in Washington. Those who wish it away ‘‘are standing in the way of the communications train.’’
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