Getcher red hot McCain campaign items. Get 'em while they're hot! File cabinets, white boards, sofas, laptops, Blackberries. EVERYTHING MUST GO!
Did I see a Blackberry on that list? Oh, yes I did, as did local Fox 5 reporter Tisha Thompson and Rick Yarborough:
The hottest item? Blackberry phones at $20 a piece. There were only 10 left. All of the batteries had died. There were no chargers for sale. But people were snatching them up. So, we bought a couple.
When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.
:
Okay how many negative stereotypes of McCain does this play into?
Incompetent? ✔
Computer illiterate? ✔
No regard for private information? ✔
We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for “Citizens for McCain,” a group of democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee. The emails contain an insider’s look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.
But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.
We called some of the numbers.
“Somebody made a mistake,” one owner told us. “People’s numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased.”
“They should have wiped that stuff out,” another said. But he added, “Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”
Nope, I'm not surprised.
We called the McCain-Palin campaign, who says, “it was an unfortunate staff error and procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure.”
Typical. Rather than think anything through in the first place, we'll just tell you we've put procedures in place, after all the damage is done.
But Thompson and Yarborough wonder:
Did we get the only Blackberry with personal campaign information in it? Or did you get one too? Let us know by dropping an email to fox5tips@wttg.com or calling our Fox 5 News Desk at (202) 895-3280.
Oh yeah, watch the video you can read names and emails.