Joe Trippi

Written by the campaign manager for Howard Dean during his 2004 bid for president, this book is part memoir of Trippi's life and experience campaigning and part call to arms to overthrow the typical style of campaigning. At times he is arrogant and self-important, but he is in the business of politics so that is to be expected. He takes the time to congratulate himself any chance he gets, and while some of the ideas are very good, I don't really believe they were all his ideas.

He speaks passionately about democracy and of the people taking back their country from corporate interests in far-reaching grassroots efforts that build momentum on the Internet. He talks about how the Dean for America campaign raised millions of dollars in just a few weeks, mainly small donations from thousands of individuals, using the Internet. He apparently detests television, or at the very least, detests television campaign ads, denouncing them as spoon-feeding the American people political messages.

It was an interesting read, I enjoyed hearing about his life on the campaign road, and I think he has some very good points. But I also think he misses some very important points about the current reach of the Internet, what people really want to do with this technology, and how involved people want to be with politics either online or off. His predictions are both short-sighted and overly optimistic - four years was not quite enough time to see his ideas come to fruition though some may in more time. While he sees the Internet as the savior of politics, finally letting each individual speak up, he fails to grasp that there are a million other reasons to give up on politics in general. My final thought: it would have been a lot more fun to enjoy Trippi's aggrandizing if he wasn't so into himself.… (mer)