Dean Swaps Broadband for Dial-Up

Howard Dean's Net-centric campaign has not only returned an error message, Dean has decided to go back for his future. Dean just fired campaign manager Joe Trippi and replaced him with long-time Al Gore bud Roy Neel.

Neel was once the bigfoot at the U.S. Telecom Association, the Bell companies' trade and special interest outfit. That would be the same Bell companies who have basically fought every Net-centric innovation since the 28.8 modem.

Lose the email Deaniacs. Think phone-tree.

Comments

[phoneman]

as a telecom guy I find this funny on many levels.

[Pavel]

First Al "I invented the Internet" Gore gets on board. Now this. What kind of creepy consortium of imaginary retrotech giants is Dean trying to put together?

[Shultz]

Fire the strategy guy?

Was it Trippi's idea to maniacly shout states or was it Trippi's idea to squeal like a woman at the end of the speech?

Is this the kind of "the buck stops here" kind of leadership we can expect when he becomes president?

P.S. Homer says, "Must...wash off...the stink...of failure."

[StMack]

Yeah. OK Howard. Closer ties to Al Gore is a sure recipie for success.

[Jason Ligon]

Gadfly,

I see what Gingrich said, and I still don't know what Gore did to 'make sure we got to an internet'.

Was the futures group where Gore decided what the central organizing principle of humanity should be?

[CTD]

StMack: maybe he can at least win the popular vote?

[Gilbert Martin]

"Poor Gilbert."

"On September 1, 2000, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed the American Political Science Association. His remarks were broadcast on C-SPAN:
"......

No "poor me" Gadfly. It doesn't matter what Gingrich said. The real credit for the existence of the internet just like the real credit for the existence of everything else in this country goes to (of course) the private sector. What we know as the internet, the world wide web was built out by the private sector after a private sector company, Netscape, invented the web browser. The private sector also gets credit for the ARPANET and everything else that came before it since the revenue to pay for it came from the private sector in the first place.

[Gadfly]

Back to the point.

Howard Dean didn't fire Trippi yet it is now widely accepted that he did so. Future Gilberts will now lap it up and regurgitate it on cue.

[alma hadayn]

"Was it Trippi's idea to maniacly shout states or was it Trippi's idea to squeal like a woman at the end of the speech?"

I heard that it was; he may not have instructed him to "squeal like a woman", but apparently it was Trippi's idea to respond on Iowa night with a high octane speech.

Anyway, there was nothing wrong with that speech, as everybody in the room said. The media blew it way out of proporion.

[Gilbert Martin]

"Future Gilberts will now lap it up and regurgitate it on cue."

Uh Huh.

And ALL of them will have a firmer grasp on the real substance of what happened than YOU will, boy.

[StMack]

CTD,

Not that that would matter if doesn't win the Electoral College.

Damn that pesky Constitution. Damn it to hell.

[Ken]

Let the implosion begin!

[Shultz]

Hey Gadfly,

Did you hear his resignation?

Did Trippi say that he wanted to spend more time with his family?

If he did, would you believe it?

[Jason Ligon]

In today's news, Al Gore's bold decision to back a frontrunner looks to be a spectacular mistake. Note for future hangers-on, if you really want to coat-tail, you should at least wait until after Iowa, and never forget that those whose campaigns are based on aggressive appeal to the base of one party will inevitably have to backpedal in a very unpresidential manner later. They are almost always unelectable.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"Anyway, there was nothing wrong with that speech, as everybody in the room said. The media blew it way out of proporion."

Baloney. I heard it live on the radio and I couldn't believe my ears -- when I tuned in (a few seconds late) I thought at first they had let some local party hack up on stage to whip the crowd up before Dean came on, but then I realized, in total amazement, that the idiot screaming was the candidate himself.

Really, the only people who can safely pull off screaming in a public forum are preachers and heavy metal singers. Anybody else behaving that way deserves both the ridicule and questions about their sanity that are bound to follow.

Go back and listen to Hillary's "we're sick and tired" speech and see if you can tell me that's someone you want decorating the Oval Office.

[mak_nas]

yep, this is yet another reason to view gore as the kiss of death (whether he is or not). time to exit stage left.

i guess his play for the 2008 nom and control of the substitute machinery that dean represented could still play out, though. maybe he can take the dean engine up against hillary then -- and lose...

[webreader]

As other writers are point out across the web, this pretty well voids any notion of Dean's "free thinking outsider" vs. "washington S.I. democrat insider" positioning. Peace out.

What the hell is attractive about Kerry anyways?

[Gadfly]

Anybody notice that Dean didn't fire Trippi? Jeff tells the lie and then David Corn repeats it at the top of this post.

"Governor Dean asked Roy Neel to join the campaign as CEO and Joe Trippi resigned as campaign manager," said Tricia Enright, a campaign spokeswoman."

As anybody who's ever filed for unemployment, there's a bid difference between quitting your job and being fired. This is the same shit that leads everybody to believe that Gore said he invented the internet.

[Gilbert Martin]

"This is the same shit that leads everybody to believe that Gore said he invented the internet."

It's no shit that whatever Gore's exact words were, he was deliberatly trying to take a lot of credit for the existence of the internet - and that notion is indeed shit!

[Gadfly]

Poor Gilbert.

"On September 1, 2000, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed the American Political Science Association. His remarks were broadcast on C-SPAN:

GINGRICH: In all fairness, it?s something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is?and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a ?futures group??the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the ?80s began to actually happen."

[Gilbert Martin]

"Since everything the gov't does is funded by private sector funds (I assume you mean taxpayer money) then there really is no public sector and libertarians can just declare victory and go home."

Not until the public sector starts taking a lot less money from my pocket to buy someone else's vote by promising them a handout.

[Mark Borok]

"The private sector also gets credit for the ARPANET and everything else that came before it since the revenue to pay for it came from the private sector in the first place."

Since everything the gov't does is funded by private sector funds (I assume you mean taxpayer money) then there really is no public sector and libertarians can just declare victory and go home.