Joe Trippi Interviewed

MikeCapone writes "Mother Jones and Alternet interviewed Joe Trippi,the guy behind the Howard Dean campaign ('the candidate lost but the campaign won'). He has a new book out, 'The Revolution will not be Televised' (click for excerpt), about how the Internet is radically changing the way politics is done. Choice quote from the interview: 'The open-source stuff was amazing. I mean, 650,000 brains are a lot smarter than the 50 [...] They spotted stuff that we didn't see, came up with ideas we wouldn't have thought of, and made the campaign a lot stronger. Just like how open-source works in running software -- it's the difference between Linux and Microsoft.'"

Comments

it means

[mpost4]

It means that "he fired up all the troops in the democrate party, before he was stabed in the back." (this is actualy a quote from Rush)

Re:it means

[MarkedMan]

"That yell didn't help..."

Ah, the hazards of the digital processing age. What was the yell? It was a direct feed from a noise cancelling microphone. Inside the room was a thunder of noise, nothing could be heard with people screaming and cheering at the top of their lungs. Dean shouted out to them, they probably couldn't even hear him, amplification or no. But the feed was taken from that darned noise cancelling mike, so you heard Dean seemingly shouting out into a virtually quiet room. The press ran with it because it was a "good" story, and Dean will forever be branded an out of control lunatic.

I'm not even a big fan of Dean's, but to have a career end like this... what a bummer.

Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?

[Tye_Informer]

I'm not sure Howard Dean is the best "horse" to hook the open source wagon to! We already have to overcome the linux is only for geeks issue. Do we want add on the screaming fanatic with no grasp on reality issue as well.

I understand that the Howard Dean scream was to motivate his people. It doesn't mean he's insane. yada yada yada. It doesn't matter what I think, I'm already on our side. What do the big companies decision makers think? In the USA they tend to be white, middle-aged, conservative (Republican).

All I'm saying, right or wrong, Howard Dean may not be a good influence on the Open Source acceptance in the mainstream.

The man is a genius

[Anonymous Coward]

He convinced a bunch of fools to part with their money using the Internet just like the Spammers and he didn't even promise to get make their dick bigger! The Dean campaign was the great Internet swindle of 2003. Just like the Dot Com boom companies and their IPOs. Thus making Howard Dean the Democratic version of the Pets.com mascot.

'the candidate lost but the campaign won'

[Otter]

It's funny -- I was just talking with someone about the conflict of interest between candidates and campaign managers. Theoretically, the campaign manager's goal is the candidate's victory -- in reality, his long term prospects depend as much on how his campaign is perceived than on how the candidate eventually fares. So, for example, Kerry may have been the winner of the 2004 primaries but the only thing anyone will remember is Joe Trippi and blogs and the cult-ish atmosphere the Dean campaign constructed.

It's interesting to see Trippi himself say it so nakedly. Of course, I don't see him talking about the other big conflict of interest: the millions of dollars in advertising kickbacks he walked off with.

how apropos

[bob dobalina]

Expropriating an old catchphrase on the cover of his book, and then expropriating free software concepts inside it. Both, badly.

Re:what the hell does this mean?

[magefile]

It means that the campaign changed the way campaigning will be done. If you RTFA (yeah, I know), the Internet is becoming a way of connecting more personally, of allowing Joe Blow to participate in the campaign; of getting people to communicate with their leaders and potential leaders, rather than just listening to them. And that's what democracy is supposed to be about, right? The voice of the people? The individual being valued as much as the group?

As he pointed out in the interview, the Kerry campaign is beginning to pick up on the idea - not as much as the Dean campaign, but some. I think this'll be like the early TV-based campaigns; some candidates get it now, some are beginning to understand, and some will take a while to get it right.

Re:What Rights?

[magefile]

Actually, this is not a politically slanted article. The point is that Open Source principles (many eyes make all bugs shallow, etc) aren't just for software. This is as much about politics as the GNU manifesto is about C code.

Now for the potentially flaming part: open source principles may be more useable by the left than the right ("command and control" issues, as he says in the interview), but that hardly means this is a politically biased article. And yes, the majority of the /. readers and editors are left-ish. Read the FAQ entry on why it's US-centric; the same arguments apply.

Dean did have a great idea

[OO7david]

...If I'm elected president, I'm going to have a blog.

I have to give Dean a lot of credit for that one. Where has the accountability gone in presidencies? It would seem to me that such a thing--while, yes, it would be scrutinized for security things--would really put people much at ease and help to eliminate the "whoops, we're at war" feelings.

Re:The Campaign Won?

[gamgee5273]

Not really. Those of us who have managed campaigns and are interested in the use of technology in them found Dean's campaign to be a sign of things to come.

The campaign itself the the tactics worked - Dean got the press he needed. What didn't work was the candidate - as has been the problem with most of Trippi's other campaigns: the candidates (Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale) find a way, usually on national TV, to point a figurative shotgun at their foot and squeeze the trigger. However, that doesn't mean the campaign was a bad campaign or not one to model other campaigns on.

Inside political arenas, the Dean campaign is going to be studied for years. It's going to be studied by people who want to emerge from the back of the pack as quickly as possible - and that is the kind of success story Trippi is talking about here.

It is also going to be studied by those who, knowing they are at the front of the pack, want to stay at the front of the pack and win. The answer there is: don't manage a national campaign for Dean, Mondale, etc...