Dean's Manager: Inside Savvy and Outsider Edge (original) (raw)

U.S.|Dean's Manager: Inside Savvy and Outsider Edge

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/13/us/dean-s-manager-inside-savvy-and-outsider-edge.html

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Dec. 13, 2003

If Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager, had a bumper sticker, it would read, ''The biggest myth in American politics is that Joe Trippi is running the Dean campaign.''

When he says this to supporters, it is a political slogan, implying that those who fill the campaign's coffers, chat on its Web sites and canvass their communities control the candidate's destiny. When he barks it at the campaign's headquarters here, it is a self-deprecating whine, complaining that the young staff fails to heed his command.

Mr. Trippi, of course, is the myth's top promoter as well as its debunker-in-chief. But many Democrats are increasingly intrigued by the man behind Dr. Dean.

After a lifetime of long shots, including five failed presidential campaigns, Mr. Trippi is the political consultant of the season, having helped transform Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, from an asterisk in the polls to the man to beat for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Trippi has revolutionized use of the Internet for political organizing and fund-raising, while becoming a cult hero to some members of the C-Span set.

The Dean phenomenon is, undoubtedly, due to a synergy of man, moment and message, but people inside the campaign, rivals, independent analysts -- even the candidate himself -- agree it would not be happening without Mr. Trippi.

Known equally for innovative ideas and razor-sharp elbows, Mr. Trippi, who spent more of the last decade working in Silicon Valley than inside the Beltway, brings an outsider's gall and an insider's savvy, other strategists say, a rare recipe that has helped catapult Dr. Dean.

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