WASHINGTON -- They're called opposition "trackers," and politicians don't always like them. Trackers show up outside campaign events and fundraising receptions, ask the pols uncomfortable questions and shoot video -- occasionally getting a squirm-worthy clip for YouTube or a commercial.

This is the rough and tumble of campaigning, and any veteran campaigner expects it. But there is a code: No touching by either side. No shoving. No grabbing the video camera in anger by a politician or staffer.

A campaign aide to Josh Mandel, the Ohio treasurer mounting a rematch campaign against incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, may have stepped over that line Wednesday by pushing against a tracker's camera and putting her hand over the lens.

This might normally be a ho-hum event but for the fact that Mandel himself was accused in his 2012 campaign against Brown of grabbing a video tracker's monopod, a device that holds the camera steady, in a public elevator. The incident started a minor flap.

Mandel denied doing anything inappropriate in 2012, but a Columbus Dispatch politics reporter witnessed the incident and reported it. As for the Wednesday incident, Mandel's campaign spokeswoman said the tracker from the Ohio Democratic Party, not a campaign aide, was out of bounds.

"Who knew the Ohio Democrats were more dramatic than the Kardashians?" Erica Nurnberg, Mandel's campaign spokeswoman, said.

So what happened?

Video shot by Juan Nino, a 24-year-old tracker for the Ohio Democratic Party, shows Nino trying to ask Mandel questions. This occurred as the candidate exited an SUV and walked into a building in Eastlake, where a "roundtable discussion and lunch" in support of Mandel's candidacy were being held.

The tracker asked questions about a new super PAC, Rev 18 (shorthand for Revolution 2018) that's supporting Mandel's Senate bid -- a super PAC formed in part by controversial "alt-light" bloggers who spread inflammatory stories during the 2016 presidential election.

The stories pertained to "Pizzagate," a false conspiracy in which a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor was accused of hosting a pedophile ring. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate for president, was accused in this false tale of having connections to the operation. A 29-year-old North Carolina man was sentenced to four years in prison for traveling to the pizza parlor and firing a military-style rifle after reading the fake reports about the pizza parlor.

The tracker Wednesday wanted to know whether Mandel would reject Rev 18's endorsement. Mandel, getting out of the SUV, didn't answer.

Instead, a female aide walked up to the tracker, put her hand over the camera lens and pushed it lightly. The sound of her hand smacking against the lens can be heard on the tracker's video. She held her hand briefly over the lens in an apparent attempt to stop the filming.

Mandel meantime walked toward the building while the tracker asked Mandel, "Do you stand with Mike Cernovich?"

Cernovich, an author and blogger who helped build support for President Donald Trump's election victory, is a founder of Rev 18. Cernovich has said he uses Internet trolling and conflict to build influence. In 2016, Cernovich helped spread the Pizzagate story.

Mandel didn't answer the question about Cernovich. The tracker than asked, "Do you think date rape is real?"

It was a reference to Cernovich's past claims that date rape is a fiction because while some men use sleazy tactics to get a date into bed, it can't be rape, he said, if there isn't physical force.

Mandel didn't answer this either. He opened a building door, entering the offices of Trust Technologies, where the event was being held. The tracker followed him in but was asked to leave by a company official. Video shows the tracker left as instructed.

Jake Strassberger, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, called it "completely inappropriate for candidates or staffers to get physical with anyone."

"This is the same type of behavior we saw from Josh in 2012 when he accosted a tracker in an elevator," Strassberger said. "It would be unacceptable in any other campaign or work setting, but lacking professionalism seems to be a job requirement for Josh's staff."

Mandel's campaign takes the opposite view: The tracker had no right to be there in the first place.

By standing outside the headquarters of Trust Technologies on Curtis Boulvard, the tracker was trespassing, said a statement from Bill Kilroy, the company's CEO and a sponsor of the Mandel event. The Mandel campaign sent Kilroy's statement to cleveland.com.

"After being asked repeatedly, the Ohio Democrat's tracker refused to leave my private property, out of a concern for the safety for my employees, I notified the proper law enforcement officials that this individual was trespassing and they told him to leave and took down a report," Kilroy said. "In my 25 years being involved in politics, I have never seen anything like this and I was startled by the incident."

An incident report from the Eastlake Police shows police were called about "a tracker who has been showing up at all of their political events trying to get a rise out of a candidate and has been following them all around." According to the complaint, police were told the tracker "has been kicked out and keeps reentering."

Strassberger, of the Ohio Democratic Party, said the claim that the tracker kept reentering was untrue. He left when told and then waited on public property, Strassberger said.

As for the police response, the Eastlake report says, "Male was advised to leave and he did."