Veteran Democratic political strategist Joe Trippi's career began with a city council race in San Jose, Calif.
Since his first endeavor, he has served in various senior roles on five presidential campaigns, including a stint as campaign manager for Howard Dean's failed bid for the White House.
Trippi addressed approximately 75 members of the University community for over an hour and a half Friday regarding the rapidly changing use of technology in politics, Dean's campaign and the future of the Democratic party.
Trippi, who has been heralded by countless publications, such as The New Republic and The New York Times Magazine, for revolutionizing presidential politics through the use of the Internet, emphasized the technology's ability to send shock waves through society, reform campaign fundraising and build trust among strangers.
"You are at the beginning of a huge change," he said. The Internet "is distributing power from the top to the bottom."
He cited Napster and eBay as the forerunners of the trend. Napster conditioned Americans to receive music for free and cut profits in the music industry by 20 percent, while eBay has helped foster trust among Americans, Trippi said.
"If Joe has a baseball in San Francisco and I have $15 and want a baseball, I'll send him the money and the baseball actually arrives," he explained. "The Internet is breaking down barriers."
Trippi's resolve to knit together an online community into the Dean campaign dates back to the mid-90s, when the campaign manager used the Internet sparsely. However, Trippi spent time on a video game message board, on which members posted reviews of games and personal stories. Two years after joining, one of the most active participants, David, had died of a heart attack at the age of 31.
"Eulogies began pouring onto the message board," Trippi said. "People were doing things that they wouldn't do for their neighbors," noting that members of the group even raised money for David's children's education.
Trippi explained that this had been the notion behind Dean's campaign. "We were trying to build this type of community," he said. However, he acknowledges that the visions of raising such high levels of money had not existed at the start of the campaign.
In addition to using the Internet for Dean's benefit, Trippi exploited the deep penetration of cell phones throughout America.
"Prior to Dean's appearance on [Meet the Press] or Hardball, we would send out a text message to all 650,000 members of our network," he said. "Four hundred thousand of them would tune in and dramatically spike the show's ratings, which was noted by all of the networks."
Trippi further compared the impact of the Internet on politics to television's effect on elections.
"This is the only way to achieve campaign finance reform," he said. It will allow candidates to accept donations under $100 and be fully self-financed, he explained.
Moreover, the medium gives ordinary Americans "ownership" of their candidate.
"In the huge race to raise money, what got left out was the people," he said. Additionally, the Internet threatens to make the old party establishment irrelevant, he said.
Trippi, who resigned from his post prior to the primary, blamed Dean's lack of campaigning experience and the unwillingness of the brightest minds in the party to sign onto the campaign for the Vermont governor's failure to capture the Democratic presidential nomination.
"Dean had really never run for anything before in his life," Trippi explained. "The first contested race of his life was for president, and he was making rookie mistakes."
Secondly, "nobody with a brain would work for us," he said.
Trippi reaffirmed the widespread belief that Dean will serve as chairman of the Democratic National Committee but added that he expects the former governor to leave the DNC before 2008 to run for president a second time.
In terms of explaining the current political climate, Trippi said that the Republicans are "playing a completely different level of chess."
After the 2000 election, Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, realized that in order to win, Bush had to branch out to non-voters, according to Trippi. Thus, he began cross-referencing pick-up truck owners with registered gun-users and got them to the polls, he explained.
"The Democrats have to reach out to single mothers," Trippi said.
As a result of the last election's favorable outcome for Republicans, he expects the GOP to push a more conservative agenda this term.
"They will have a Howard Dean-like character in '08, and if that happens, the Democratic nominee will be president."
Attendees seemed pleased with the event.
"I though he was great," 2004 Fels Institute graduate Josh Nanberg said. "He has a lot of insight into the direction of where political activism in the country is moving."
