Joe Trippi, General Custer’s groundbreaking strategist
Howard Dean’s former campaign manager Joe Trippi keeps making the rounds as The Man Who Bloggered Politics. For a guy who rode a minor-league candidate to utter defeat, Trippi sure talks a big game. Everytime you see him on TV, or quoted in the papers, re-read this piece by liberal/progressive writer and media critic Dan Kennedy:
[T]the idea that no one understood how to raise money on the Internet before Dean (actually, Trippi) is ridiculous. The notion of using technology as a fundraising tool, especially by outsiders, is an old one. Jerry Brown mentioned his 800 number every chance he got in 1992. In 2000, John McCain constantly flogged his website, and had some success raising money that way. Trippi took it to a new level not because he understood something different about the Internet, but because he built a campaign that specifically appealed to young, technologically savvy, well-educated activists who spent a lot of time online. Kerry didn’t so much emulate Dean as he did benefit from a change that was already taking place.
Of course, Kennedy’s plea later in the piece to keep the Democratic party “moderate” is probably overdone since the medium and long term electoral demographics heavily favor El Partido del Donkey. Trippi and his pale pencilneck blogolutionaries just aren’t an important part of that development.
