Alternate headline: Unemployment in Massachusetts Ticks Up By One Job.  Seriously, how dumb is this?  It’s so dumb that the last candidate who ran against Scott Brown for US Senate did the same thing, as the Weekly Standard reminds us.  How well did that work out for Martha Coakley again?

The Republican staffer holding the camera films Warren leaving the event and entering her SUV. One of Warren’s aides, who looks to be, perhaps, her driver, pushes the camera twice, and the second time it falls to the ground. The tracker picks up the camera and continues filming, while the Warren staffer says, “Dude, get out of my face or I’m going to call the police.”

“It’s a public event,” the Republican staffer says multiple times. Finally, as he’s walking away, the Warren staffer says, “You’re messing with the wrong people.”

It was a public event, it was on public property, and there is nothing in the video to suggest that the tracker did anything to provoke the assault.  Trackers have become a fact of life on the campaign trail, thanks to the decline in the cost of recording everything.  In fact, this is precisely the kind of thing that trackers want to catch on camera, along with candidate gaffes and inconsistencies.  How smart is it to hand that kind of event to one’s opponent on a silver platter?