Harry Reid, Sharron Angle race has sporting side to it, too

By Anjeanette Damon

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 | 2 a.m.

In the campaign warfare that is Nevada’s U.S. Senate race, being a tracker means wading into enemy territory armed with a conspicuous camera and the chutzpah not to care.

Nevada Democrats have employed a tracker since the start of the Republican primary. The friendly blonde woman in her 20s followed the leading GOP contenders for months, eventually nabbing the bartering-for-health-care gem that helped bring down front-runner Sue Lowden. (In case your memory is giving out, Lowden advocated using chickens and other goods to barter for health care.)

The Democrats’ tracker now follows Republican nominee Sharron Angle full time.

Now, the counterattack: Call it the blocker versus the tracker.

When the Democrats’ tracker pulls out her camera, there appears the blocker — a young man who towers about 6-foot-5 and has a set of shoulders broad enough to block the horizon, let alone a good sound bite.

It’s a less-than-dignified sideshow at Angle’s events. The tracker positions herself, the blocker gets in the way. The tracker reaches the camera past the blocker’s shoulder, the blocker shifts his shoulder.

At an appearance by Angle at a Minden coffee shop Tuesday, the tracker twice outwitted the blocker. She set up directly behind some chairs so the blocker couldn’t stand in front of her. She shot over the heads of the audience as Angle spoke. Then she used television news cameras as a shield, giving her a clear shot of Angle.

Defeated, the blocker slunk off to sit in a campaign vehicle.

Republicans have been using their own tracker on Reid during his campaign stops recently.

And so Reid too has an anti-tracker strategy.

For one thing, many of Reid’s events aren’t “public,” meaning a tracker can’t get in. And this week, the GOP released video footage of a member of Reid’s security detail demanding the tracker turn off his camera as he filmed Reid getting into his vehicle to leave an event in Reno.

“We’re on private property, so I can ask you to put it away, please,” the officer tells the tracker.

So who’s got the better tracker-blocker strategy?

To date, the Reid campaign has used tracker footage in at least two attack ads against Angle; footage shot by Angle’s tracker has yet to be used in an ad.