Inside Skinny: A Little Look into Campaigns and The People Who Run Them

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Now, of course, this is from a blog, and we all know that blogs are just chocka-block full of falsehoods, right? RIGHT? Ahem.

But this is well-worth reading. A little light gets shone into the DNC chair imbroglio. Much is revealed. Much is explained. Much comes into better focus.

http://patriotacts.blogspot.com/2005/01/joe-trippi-will-end-up-being-howard.html

I don't know about you, but this is an illustration of why I am for reform.

[merbex]

1. That was an interesting read for political junkies

I keep imagining that Dean gets the DNC chair, gets the grassroots motivated,and all these consultants are basically out of work if the people take over.

They'll be used to make a few commercials - the real knocking on door work is going to have to be done by us, you, me and our neighbors

Oh, and many SMALL contributions, as we have seen can be done

[John_H]

2. Will you abandon Dean if the reality is different from your prediction?

If there are as many (if different) consultants? If the corporate money keeps rolling in? If Dean has to make some deals to keep the party together?

No offense, but your post sums up why I am troubled by Dean as DNC Chair. I like him personally, but I'm worried that his supporters support him for unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky reasons. When--not if, when--Dean has to act like DNC chair, I'm afraid there will be a huge backlash among the people that put him there. And that will only help the GOP.

[jswordy]

4. I have already elsewhere...

...told you that your assumptions about Dean supporters and the DNC chair are incorrect. And told you why.

[merbex]

5. I believe that the next DNC chair's report card is the 2006

midterm elections

What is a passing grade?

A+++ would be taking back House and Senate in fact I don't think you could grade that high enough

F would be losing more seats than we have already - a steady drip drip drip

I'm working on the "in between grades" and how I would measure them

Care to join this grading endeavor?

[jswordy]

3. This is interesting but all very old news to...

...those of us who were involved in the Dean campaign. And "nobody seemed to notice" when the ad buy deal came out? I beg to differ! Trippi was ripped a new one by all the folks on the Dean for America blog. Lots of us noticed his firm pocketed a 15% commission on every ad he booked.

As far as campaign finances, I have the benefit of age and experience (in campaigns, as a salesman serving them, and as a reporter covering them), and I can tell you that all printing, ad time, hotel rooms and etc. done by a candidate are paid by cash up front. Businesses know that if the candidate loses, they won't get paid. So they don't carry them.

It was a gullible youthful mistake on the part of the author to take promissary notes from ANY campaign. That's not how it works in the real world.

The author seems to have been a very naive youngster working for idealistic goals. Those kinds of folks are really easy to fleece, by crooks and politicians.

It pays to be cynical and trust your gut in this business.

The higher you go, the higher the stakes are. At the presidential level, you are basically talking about candidates and staffers who have survived the meat grinder to reach that level. To do so, one must become hardened, even callous to a certain extent, and focused on one goal -- the office -- with all else winnowed down to what will drive you to that goal. If it doesn't drive you there, it is irrelevant and is left behind.

That is the reality that many folks just don't see about campaigns for national office. The candidate and staff must be super-driven to one goal and one goal only in order to succeed. There is no time for wandering around or taking detours.

I'm sorry the experience left the author somewhat disillusioned, but I hope it is chalked up to experience.

Trippi lost my admiration long before the campaign finance announcement. He lost it when he allowed the Far Left to co-opt the Dean campaign and twist its public image to something the candidate was not, all in trade for the cash they would click into the coffers (and later Trippi's wallet) through the Net bats onsite. That was a fatal error, and one Dean will be certain not to repeat in any potential future run. He is still even now rebuilding his image from that fatal Trippi strategy. The manager screwed his candidate bigtime.

Then there was The Scream speech, which resulted when Dean (who was going to go out and do a typical concession after the Iowa loss) was told by Trippi to zip it up to "rally the troops."

After Trippi was fired, he formed a group of his own at about the same time Dean for America morphed into Democracy for America. Trippi's group had the same goal as DFA -- to fund candidates to run for office as Democrats. Trippi hopeed he could siphone off the disillusioned Far Left component of Dean's camp and use those folks to raise funds. But those Far Lefties left the Democratic Party altogether, and in the end the core group that stuck with DFA left Trippi's group in the dust, so Joe is pissed about that.

I figure that's where his opposition to Dean comes from -- having his own group left behind and seeing his political voice diminished. I would be supremely surprised if Joe Trippi ever works as campaign manager for a national level candidate again. He did one great thing -- linked the campaign to the Net. Other than that, he was a dud.

[Cassandra Complex]

6. Straight from the gullible, naive, idealistic, fleeced horse's mouth

Interesting....

Cassandra here.

And yes, we can take bloggers with a grain of salt, however, if this is fiction, I've had quite a breakthrough!

I'm sorry that I didn't "notice" more about the Trippi/Campaign finances connection. I'm mostly a mainstream media consumer, with no cable and no left-wing radio (outside of Pacifica -- and they didn't seem much interested in Dean and/or Trippi) in my huge media market.

As far as my idealism, I'll cop to it. That must be why I'm now a teacher in a Title One school. I still believe that those kids have a future, in spite of NCLB's continual testing instead of teaching and reflection.

However, as far as gullibility or (excuse me while I guffaw) "reaching" levels in presidential campaigns -- as opposed to stooping to them -- I will protest.

I was actively recruited to attend a Democratic training weekend in DC at Catholic University the weekend before Thanksgiving in 1987. There they taught a young group of Hill staffers and interns and other, idealistic young democrats to LIE, CHEAT AND STEAL. I have my notes still. I can prove it.

I, of course, soothed myself with the thought that I would never, ever stoop to such tactics and allowed myself, instead, to be sucked into the patriotic rhetoric provided by the more noble workshop leaders. (There were leaders for all stripes -- frat boy types for the used-car hustlers, and soft spoken former Carter staffers with lofty speeches for folks like me.) After long workshop days followed by elbow rubbing in bars around the Hill, they asked us, on the final day, "Who can be in Iowa the day after Thanksgiving?"

I bit. I was idealistic. I did want to make a difference. (I still do.) I wanted to do something noble.

However, when, a few days after I arrived, I was dropped off in Oskaloosa Iowa with $20, no car or place to stay and a couple of phone numbers, those recently learned lessons in lying, cheating and stealing started to surface.

So, you may be way wise to the ways of campaigns with all your experience in sales and journalism. I was not. And I say that the Democratic hacks wanted it that way. And that's a shame.

(However I will say that I quickly "rose" up the ranks of the campaign. I have never met a bigger group of short-sighted, self-serving bumbling idiots in my life. I was a friggin' genius in that group! Gave me a decent ego boost after all, which possibly made up for the huge disillusionment. If I could survive that hell, I could survive anything.)

Now, most of the boys -- and they were mostly boys in 1987/8 -- were truly college kids, frat boy types. And as far as I know, I was the ONLY one under 40 who wasn't getting by on Mommy's and/or Daddy's credit card. And I think that is a whole other form of soft money that would be subject to true reform.

But, I am still naive.

Gotta go.... I have a lesson to plan. My 4th and 5th graders are adapting "The Emperor's New Clothes" for the spring play...

Cassandra Complex
Patriot Actors

[KittyWampus]

7. Funny, When I Mentioned Trippi Pocketing Money From Dean's Broke

campaign months ago, several Dean supporters jumped down my throat saying it was all media spin.

Now that Trippi has spoken against Dean... the media spin is correct?

Anyhow, Dean is no different than any other Democrat when it comes to policy.

As far as methodology... Dean might make a few well needed changes.

I found nothing new or enlightening in that blog. AND it hurt my eyes reading it... black backgrounds SUCK.