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In a scene that could have come from the student film version of Mission Impossible, two staffers for the Michigan Republican Party secretly recorded a June 22 fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer using spy glasses, but left the memory card.

The Michigan GOP confirmed Wednesday that the organization sent staffers Kyle Anderson and Natalie Collins to the private fundraiser to videotape the candidate, something their communications director Darren Littell, defended.

"Republicans do it; Democrats do it,” Littell told The Detroit News. “People use different ways to get the footage. ... This is a newer approach,” he added.

Collins, a regional press secretary for the Michigan GOP, was wearing glasses with a camera hidden in the frame. A disk containing the footage was later found on the floor after a July 8 Oakland County Democratic Party meeting at Farmington Hills Collins may have attended.

The video shows Collins and Anderson walking through the event with Collins complaining to Anderson about being photographed while eating pineapple, commenting that the fundraiser's Bloomfield Hills home is "very 80's" and responding to a question from Democratic running mate Lisa Brown as to why Anderson isn't in student government by saying, "he lives that frat life."

Schauer's people repurposed the video and slapped it up on YouTube, letting the pieces fall where they may.

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