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January 29, 2004
Piling on Dean?
I've got mixed feelings about Trippi's firing. But piling on Dean for doing the wrong thing is wrongheaded for a number of reasons. Foremost among them is that it was Trippi, not Dean, who promised a hard count of 50,000 in Iowa and delivered, by some estimates, as low as 17,000 on caucus night.
Had those 50,000 materialized, Dean would have likely won the Iowa caucuses 33%-30 over Kerry and coasted to another close victory in New Hampshire. Trippi had organized a campaign that put all of it's resources (some $35 million out of $40 raised) into winning these two states and then using that momentum to win enough delegates from the rest of the states.
It was a winning idea. The only problem is that Kerry, not Dean, is running with it. Speaking of money, what happened to all but $5 million of the money Dean raised? It is my understanding that the campaign wasn't even running ads in the Feb 3rd states until this week. You can't replace the candidate, and unfortunately for the Joe Trippi's of the world, you can replace the campaign manager.
Final Thoughts: The sooner we never have to hear about Dean's legion of nose-ring dreadlocked whatevers the better. Most of the people working for Georgia for Dean don't fit this description at all. It's mostly dedicated soccer moms and unassuming gay professionals. I saw nary a nosering at the many Meetups and house parties I went to.
Posted by Chris at January 29, 2004 01:26 AM
Comments
I think the media folks who use the "dreadlocks n' noserings" stereotypes are just trying to be kind to Dean's supporters, who are nuts. Most everyone can understand the reactions of a stereotypically staid Midwesterner confronted with a stereotypically wacky punk a lot more quickly than they can understand the idea of aesthetically normal people who are completely nuts interacting with plain folks. The end result of these hypothetical sitcom type interactions would be probably the same result as the actual interactions between normal looking Iowans and normal looking Deaniacs
Posted by: neil at January 29, 2004 09:52 AM
There are over 600,000 people who signed up to be Dean supporters.
I have seen several hundred of them - no nose -rings. Most middle-aged but Dean attracts the broadest range of supporters.
The real story of the Iowa speech :http://www.idiomstudio.com/
My website is #1 for liberal news on google.
Posted by: 600,000 Nuts? at January 30, 2004 08:00 PM
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