Value Judgment: DFA Staff Shake-Up

Value Judgment is a daily weblog written by two independent voters on the eastern seaboard of the United States. VJ will focus on the 2004 U.S. Presidential campaigns, including strategy, tactics, and substance. The authors supported Howard Dean in the Democratic primary. Accordingly, his activities will be a prominent topic on this site.

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January 28, 2004

DFA Staff Shake-Up - Trippi Out?

Rumor has it that Joe Trippi is being demoted or is quitting or something. There's a dKos diary with a bunch of gossip. So far, the only link I've seen is a Pickler article that says:

Howard Dean shook up his presidential campaign on Wednesday after absorbing back-to-back defeats, bringing in a longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore to try and stabilize his faltering candidacy, Democratic sources said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Dean told congressional supporters in a telephone conference call that he was installing Roy Neel as campaign CEO. Dean added that campaign manager Joe Trippi would remain on the payroll, the source said.

Much as I think Joe Trippi did great things in the summer and early fall, he didn't come through in the clutch. Can't hurt to try something new.

Posted by J at January 28, 2004 05:36 PM

Comments

The Washington Post has it too.

Posted by: Dori at January 28, 2004 06:17 PM

And Blog for America. Trippi is curt in his statement, and he seems to be gone, really gone (i.e., no longer working for the campaign at all?). Dean's press release is the normal kind of thing that says nothing about the internal shakeup, really.

It's not that big of a surprise, because this is what candidates do when they lose contests that they were supposed to be more competitive in. Unfortunately, Dean's campaign was supposed to be different. He's looking a little establishment-like to do this.

On the other hand, he doesn't have to worry about any publicity on this. The TV networks have already started to rake over Kerry.

Posted by: Glen Engel-Cox at January 28, 2004 08:42 PM

I think this campaign was like a startup -- and they always get rid of their CEOs after a certain point. The same qualities that make a good CEO when a company is getting started are the very ones that get in the way after it's off the ground, and you must bring in someone else to bat cleanup.

Posted by: Janis at January 28, 2004 09:49 PM