Republican calls cops on Eagle Scout for taking notes at campaign stop

[e-brake]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...s/15223972.htm

Weldon campaign calls for help... a bit early Anticipating trouble, it called the police. They found an Eagle Scout taking notes for Sestak.

By Todd Mason

Inquirer Staff Writer

Here's an FYI for anyone planning protests at campaign events for U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon: The Pennsylvania Republican is ready for you.
Expecting a demonstration by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org, Weldon's campaign called the police to a campaign event Friday in Springfield, Delaware County.
The officer responding found only Ross Doppelt, 18, a campaign volunteer from Havertown for Democratic challenger Joe Sestak.
Doppelt, an Eagle Scout and an honor student, was taking notes on Weldon's remarks to report back to the Sestak braintrust, a tactic that both sides employ.
"I wasn't completely sure why they came up to me and no one else," Doppelt said of his meeting with Springfield's finest.
The police officer was equally perplexed, apparently. When he didn't find any marchers or placards, he approached Weldon's staff, who pointed out Doppelt "as a possible protester," said Police Lt. William Clark.
"He wasn't doing anything," Clark said. The police wouldn't intervene in a lawful protest, he said.
Weldon protesters carried signs at a recent Sestak event at a Springfield Township shopping mall asking the retired admiral to go back to Virginia, where he still owns a home. Sestak, who grew up in Springfield, retired this year after serving 31 years in the military.
Weldon's campaign had been given an e-mail from MoveOn appealing for volunteer protesters, said Michael Puppio, his campaign manager.
Given the "occasional extreme quality of organizations like MoveOn, we thought it was prudent to notify law enforcement," he said. That will be the Weldon campaign's standard campaign practice, he said.
MoveOn held rallies in June outside the campaign offices of four Republicans in Connecticut, Indiana, Ohio and Virginia who have been targeted by the group in a "Caught red-handed" campaign.
In television advertisements and protests, the group uses the expression - and images of a red hand - in an attempt to link the politicians with special interests such as the defense and oil industries.
MoveOn said it hopes to organize local protests against Weldon but doesn't plan to advertise in his Seventh Congressional District, covering most of Delaware and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.
MoveOn spokeswoman Timi Gerson said that no arrests have been made of red-handed protesters.
"Weldon is someone who believes that the jury is still out on weapons of mass destruction, so he has a habit of perceiving threats that are not really there," said Sestak spokesman Ryan Rudominer.