The McCain campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia held a sale to dispose of office inventory from the campaign. Filing cabinets, computers, sofas, whiteboards and much more had to go and did at bargain prices.

About 10 Blackberry’s were up for sale too. At $20, they were a bargain. A reporter bought a couple and recharged them later.

Oops, someone forgot to erase the confidential information. The Fox 5 reporter revealed some of the information.

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for “Citizens for McCain,” a group of democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee.  The emails contain an insider’s look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.

We called some of the numbers.

“Somebody made a mistake,” one owner told us.  “People’s numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased.”

“They should have wiped that stuff out,” another said.  But he added, “Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”

We called the McCain-Palin campaign, who says, “it was an unfortunate staff error and procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure.”

Apparently, when a candidate loses, it is hard to keep the volunteers motivated to finish the housekeeping chores.