You know, I think you might be onto something here. Surely this cannot just be a shorting of "campaign staff of the drmocrats" and "campaign staff of the republicans" that just looks a little weird before you think about it grammatically. No, there's clearly a multimillion dollar right-wing extremist conspiracy afoot to affect a slight change in noun phrases that will have zero impact on any policy or office.

Edit: And my typo of "democrats" as "drmocrats" clearly reveals I'm in on the vicious plot of persecution via zero impact phraseology! Probably getting a check straight from the Kochs, even.