NHGOP Bans Political Tracker from Future Events

The New Hampshire Republican State Committee will ban political trackers involved with American Bridge 21st Century from attending all party events and is calling for others to do the same after a tracker was reportedly recording U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and other Republicans at the Ray Burton memorial service over the weekend.

The issue came to light after political reporter James Pindell of WMUR-TV, who was in attendance at the service for the long time Executive Councilor who passed away in October, noticed that the tracker was at the event recording Ayotte and Tweeted about it: “Hey @AmericanBridge tracker: Put away your damn camera taping @KellyAyotte and others at Ray Burton memorial service,” while adding the hashtag “#getclass” to the end of the Tweet.

Earlier today, NHGOP Chairwoman Jennifer Horn lashed out at the organization calling it “sad” that it would record others just to “try and score cheap political points” by recording a memorial service.

"Clearly this classless liberal political organization has crossed the line, and as a result of its outrageous behavior, American Bridge trackers are not welcome at New Hampshire Republican State Committee sponsored events,” she wrote in a press statement. “Additionally, we will encourage all candidates, and local Republican committees to remove American Bridge staff from their events."

American Bridge 21st Century describes itself as “a progressive research and communications organization committed to holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions and helping you ascertain when Republican candidates are pretending to be something they’re not,” adding that it monitors “public appearances to prevent the cynical pandering that results in a candidate taking different positions depending on the audience they are in front of. And we work to get this information to you through mainstream and social media, grassroots activism and our website.”

About an hour and a half after the NH GOP press release went out, American Bridge offered an apology on Twitter stating, “As a matter of policy, we do not attend those types of events. There was a miscommunication with our staff on the ground in NH … We sincerely apologize & regret the error. Our staff has addressed the issue internally in order to ensure this never happens again.”

Pindell wasn't the only one who reacted to the tracking by the group. 

Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, called the tracking a “#dumbmove” since the event was being broadcast live on WMUR-TV’s website.