I finally read "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Joe Trippi

I resisted reading this book for a long time because, frankly, I hate Howard Dean. Then a friend, who shares my feelings about Dean, recommended it and said Trippi writes about a lot of things my friend and I were screaming about during the last Presidential election.

Its a great book, especially for a full-time campaign junkie like me. I related to a lot of what he wrote about working on campaigns. It made me like Trippi regardless of what I think about Dean. He obviously made many great points about internet organizing.

I was interested in what he wrote about the conflict between himself and Kate O'Connor. Its a familiar dynamic in Presidential campaigns. The person who travels with the candidate, O'Connor in this case, has a great deal of power and influence over the campaign, even if they aren't officially in charge. Campaigns become chaotic (more than usual) if there isn't one clear person in charge. Trippi portrayed O'Connor as someone who was concerned about Dean being pigeon-holed as a liberal and his ability to move back to the middle during the general election.

The push and pull between these two staffers sheds a light on why I disliked Dean so much. At one event, usually in front of a core Democratic crowd, he would sound liberal and claim to be from the "democratic wing of the Democratic Party." At a different event, and in some national media interviews, he would caution that he's really a moderate centrist. During the entire campaign I felt Dean was trying to have it both ways, on his positions, on his ideology, on his record. He had the framing of a progressive with the record and program of a DLC centrist. That's why I viewed him as a gigantic fake and I now see that one big reason for that impression is that Dean was being pulled in two different directions by his staff and didn't know which way to go.

I'm sure this will royally piss of the Dean fans, which is why I didn't post it in General Discussion for a flame war. Anyway, its a good book and Trippi makes some wonderful points.

I think the next step is to more fully integrate the more traditional field organizing with the kind of online organizing that Trippi was doing. I think the Dean campaign could have done a better job of feeding the meetup and internet volunteers into a broader, coordinated field campaign. Trippi has a lot of experience crafting a good message, but ultimately John Kerry won Iowa because he had a very solid field organization. Sometimes I saw Dean people in Iowa doing counterproductive things like pissing off the supporters of candidates they were bird dogging. That's a big mistake in a caucus system.

The next step will be to make the traditional field organizers and the net organizers work together to form a seamless organization. In future elections, we can't have a wall dividing the net organizers and the field organizers and have them answer to different bosses. Its all one thing and all field organizers will also have to be good net organizers and vice versa. If a primary campaign can do that in '08, they'll be in good shape.

But I hope you've got asbestos undies on.
:popcorn:

Well, I thought this forum might be a little more sleepy than GD.

Eight minutes without so much as a match being struck!

Guess you're right about this forum.

some negative comments about Clark too and repost it in GDP. But that would be asking for a lock.

:rofl:

of that..... hey... I'm kidding, but you were expecting flames so I thought fake flames might do.... :)

;) Thanks for only giving fake flames.

This may change if we win the midterms, but I think it's true now. There are a few hardcore Deaniacs still around though.

This book at fallen off my reading list lately because my local library doesn't have it. You have motivated me to look for this book at the bookstore now.

I'm glad you liked my post. The book is definitely worth reading.

the primaries. Vermont leftists warned me about him ,too, but I was dazzled by the excitement of his campaign and how he seemed to piss off all the right people. I have since done my homework and realize he is exactly what you say. I read a book by a leftist that pretty much tore him a new asshole in great detail. I understand why you wouldn't want to post this in one of the main forums. You don't want to speak ill of Wesley Clark in any of the threads either, you will get mercilessly personally attacked in the same manner.

thanks for the write up about the book, too. Makes me curious to read it. :thumbsup:

I bought this book Thursday. I usually read a little of a book here and a little of it there. This book, though, I haven't been able to put down. It is a great read about how campaigns run. I highly recommend it.

I stayed up almost all night to finish it, which I rarely do for any book.