Karl Rove meet Joe Trippi

[CMT]

If Howard Dean does win the Democratic nomination for president (and it is still a long way from being decided) one thing will be clear--Karl Rove has some tough competition in the "master strategist" department.

After all Rove took a well financed, well-known Texas Governor and son of a former president who had all the endorsements and name recogntition the GOP nomination only to have him go from a 15-point lead in the polls to actually losing the popular vote. In fact, if you add the Nader vote to the Democratic plurality the left beat Bush in 2000 by over 3 million votes.

Now Joe Trippi on the other hand helped guide a relatively unknown small state Governor (and Vermont is really small)from 1% in the national polls to being a viable candidate for president of the United States. Enginnering a revolution in fund-raising--breaking the fund-raising totals of a sitting Democratic president. Making the internet a key in not only fund-raising but in organizing and getting your message out to supporters and volunteers. Additionally, Trippi has helped this Governor tap into discontent which was prevelent in the Democratic party that the national party was not being agressive enough in standing up to Bush. Who would have thought that Howard Dean would be the front runner for the Democratic nomination and would be winning the endorsements of such politically active unions as SEIU and AFCME?? Trippi deserves a great deal of credit for the way he has guided this campaign.

If it is Dean vs. Bush next year I think think the real war will be between Rove and Trippi and I think they will be pretty evenly matched and given what they both have accomplished would actually give an edge to the scrappy Joe Trippi.

p.s.
if Dean isn't the nominee the eventual nominee should definitely find a place for Trippi in his campaign.

[hlthe2b]

1. that's an interesting aspect.

So far they've managed the DLC maze relatively well, too, it would seem.

[Hep]

2. I'm not into Trippi

Dean's campaign was doing what it was doing before they hired trippi. I think he's done some good, but I don't like some of the ways he's leading this campaign.

[pruner]

3. there's a good article about Trippi in The New Republic

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=uPrIwAEG7fHpGFSjMCq7tR%3D%3D

[SeattleRob]

6. Excellent article...

Trippi is the type of person we need to go toe to toe with Rove.

[blm]

4. Yeah...Trippi is a great plastic surgeon.

He coopted the language of internet message boards and built a mask of populism and placed it over the governor's real core Libertarian, 11 year GOP buttkissing centrist face, and is successfully selling him through the corporate media.

[dave29]

5. and now everyone else is trying to do it to

Way to go Trippi

[Eloriel]

7. And then what did you dream, blm?

Most of what you write about Dean, and this succinct, baseless little diatribe, is pure fantasy on your part. But I think you know that.

THere's no way that all the fancy internet tools would do squat were it not for the candidate himself. (Cf. John Kerry)

Dream on. One of these days you'll have to awake to reality: President Dean.

Eloriel

[wryter2000]

8. Someone over there's a genius, no doubt about it

It may be Trippi. I imagine Dean has a few ideas himself. See someone's post about challenging Bush to stick to the $45 million spending limit.

However, I think I've heard reported here that even Trippi's been astonished at times at the outpouring of support Dean gets. IOW, they're doing a brilliant job of managing something that actually has a life of its own. George W. Asshole has been a major contributor to that force by effing everything up.