Joe Trippi Dean Campaign Manager Wednesday, August 27, 2003; 3:00 p.m ET
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who is considering becoming the first Democrat to forgo public financing for a presidential campaign, will raise at least $10.3 million this quarter, his campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said yesterday. Trippi was online to discuss the campaign and the recent fundraising numbers. A transcript follows. Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Joe Trippi: The last four or five days have been another amazing part of an amazing seven months. I think back in January with 7 national staff and $157,000 in the bank. The last few days have been amazing.
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Westerly, R.I.: Mr Trippi,
Will you forgo federal matching funds? Do you believe President Bush is beatable if the Democrat running against him has to limit his spending?
Joe Trippi: We haven't made any decision about matching funds right now. We intend to stay within the system, but we are not closing the door. Part of the reason we are not is because of the huge advantage the President gains by opting out of the system. To even imagine opting out of the matching system you would have to have a campaign with nearly a million Americans contributing to it. It would be a nice problem to have, but even as well as we are doing now, we are quite a ways from making that decision.
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Boulder, Colo.: The recall race in California has taken national prominence. More importantly, the race has pushed out of the press a great deal of coverage of the presidential primary. How do you think this will affect Democrats in '04?
Joe Trippi: I think for Democrats nationally it would not be good for a Republican to emerge as Governor of a stat a important as California. In terms of the presidential campaign, the attention the recall is getting has clearly taken a lot of the focus away from the Democratic presidential nominating process. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get coverage of the process and will remain that way until the recall on Oct. 7th.
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Croton Falls, N.Y.: When will the campaign bring in heavyweights in the foreign policy area?
Joe Trippi: We talked to a lot of people in foreign policy today. The Governor continues to meet and speak with people such as Madeline Albright, Sandy Burger, and Gen Wesley Clark and others. Many of these people happily advise any and all candidates on the Democratic side and others give such advice privately and have not given permission for their names to be given out. Gen. Horde, Commander of the Marines (Ret.), endorsed us last week and is one of Dean's top advisors.
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Alexandria, Va.: Is Dean concerned about now being the frontrunner in terms of cash? It's hard to run as a comeback kid or the underdog in his new position.
Joe Trippi: Our party always finds a Washington consensus frontrunner before it ever finds an insurgent. That has been our historic patterns. Mondale is the Washington consensus candidate and Gary Hart emerges as the insurgent. The thing that is different this time is that everyone knows who the insurgent is this time -- his name is Howard Dean. The difference is that in on of the few times in our party's history we all found the insurgent before a consensus was formed around a Washington frontrunner. The last time that happened was Jimmy Carter in 1976 when emerged as an insurgent and became so strong that he became the nominee. So, that is our thinking. We won't be the frontrunner. There is no frontrunner because there is no consensus within the party establishment.
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Scottsdale, Ariz.: Joe,
Your campaign seems to have let go of the tight reins that traditionally control other campaigns. Aren't you afraid that you'll lose control of the message you are trying to get out there to the masses?
Joe Trippi: It is hard to let go mostly because 20 something years of training tells you to keep command and control, nut if your message is that the American people have got to participate in their democracy again than you have to do that, and let them do so on their terms not yours.
I do think this is a problem the other campaigns are having. This is the first campaign of the modern era. The rules are changing and they are still operating in the old politics. We are building a new politics that probably every campaign will be using years from now. I think you will see more campaigns doing it our way.
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Bethesda, Md.: Joe,
This is your CPA writing. I cannot get you on the phone, so I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you to get me your missing tax information.
If you get it to me by 9/15, I pledge to make a $100 contribution to the campaign.
MAK
Joe Trippi: Thanks for filing the extension. You really figured out how to get me to send you the information - a Dean donation. Thanks.
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Alexandria, Va.: Joe -- Congratulations on running a great campaign so far. I have long been impressed with your political skills, and remember fondly working with you and Bob Bechel on the 1984 Mondale campaign in D.C. and New Hampshire (when I was younger and had no gray hairs). Despite the outcome, it was a great and honorable campaign for a great and honorable public servant. While I have not yet taken the plunge for Governor Dean, I certainly appreciate his willingness to tell it like it is, and his "Meet the Press" performance notwithstanding, his candor and ability to energize Democrats is the main reason for his success. That said, what concerns do you have, if any, that Governor Dean may have difficulty picking up moderate Democratic support, which he may not need to get the nomination, but will certainly need to win the general election. You know that the Bush team will pull out all the stops to pin the "L" label on Dean, so what is your strategy to counter that and bring moderate Ds and (gasp!) "liberal" Rs over to the Dean camp. Bob Kinney
Joe Trippi: We are not really concerned about that at all. We are doing that every day. In several states where polls include independents we are leading - New Hampshire in particular. I think that has a lot to do with the governor's strong record on fiscal responsibility. That he is considered the most liberal major candidate in the race is pathetic considering how centrist his record is. It tells you how far astray the Democratic party has moved to the right, instead of taking on challenging the Republican party. Our view is that a reenergized Democratic party with millions of new voters participating is the best way to defeat George Bush. Trying to be Bush light is not the way to defeat George Bush.
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Ann Arbor, Mich.: Mr. Trippi
Is it true your campaign chooses what goes up on the blog or is it really open for free discussion?
Joe Trippi: It is open for free discussion. I have seen a lot of comments on other blogs that we monitor it and take some stuff down, but that is just not true. On occasion we take down profanity and things that are just too over the top. In fact now we have so many comments that I am sure that there is stuff that someone has posted that we haven't even seen yet. In the early days we had a guy that would come on and say "Howard Dean sucks" for pages. We would take it down because you would have to scroll forever to see anything interesting. Even now some stuff gets by us, but we try to let everyone post. Negative comments that are challenging or questioning Dean are left up all the time, it is only when they are super obnoxious that we have taken it down - and that happens very rarely.
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Winchester, Va.: Dean certainly has strength in the industrial and metropolitan parts of the country, but does he have what it takes to win over rural voters in the South and West, which proved to be the mainstay of Bush’s support in 2000.
Joe Trippi: One of the big advantages I think that Dean has over the other candidates is that the state of Vermont is a rural state. I think that is one of the reasons he has done so well communicating in states like Iowa and other rural states in the country. He understands the concerns of rural America. One of those areas is small businesses -- his economic plan focuses on small business. I have watched him, and whether it is a rural town or a crowd of 10,000 people he really communicates in a way that attracts people - independents and Democrats. I haven't seen that ability in a long long time - to be able to speak to a large crowd in New York or Seattle as well as a rural crowd in small town America. We went to Boise Idaho on this trip and it was amazing.
We have to get broadband communication into both poorer urban centers and rural areas. They are both being left out in a lot of the information jobs that should be a big boon to rural America. He has a real focus on how you help not just the industrial states, but rural America as well. He understands how tough farming is in this day and age. People don't expect that from him. They don't expect him to know those issues and when they see he does they respond to it.
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New York, N.Y.: Joe,
Even though the Dean Campaign is fundraising at a record pace -- you're also going to be spending more funds than other candidates soon on ads in six early primary states. Is it wise it go on the air this early in these states? When you went on the air in Austin, Tex. and in Iowa, did you guys see any movement with voters towards Howard Dean?
Joe Trippi: Actually we have been on the air in Iowa, New Hampshire and Texas. In Iowa we are ahead in Iowa, a new Zogby poll has us way ahead of Kerry in New Hampshire, and in Austin thousands of Texans both joined our campaign and contributed to it - and it wasn't just people in Austin, Tex. We decided that if we picked key markets in the first six early states that we could get more people to join our grassroots campaign and make us stronger as we continue to spread our message. The other thing, when you raise a million dollars in four days like we just did and the average contribution of roughly $50 that means almost all that million dollars will be matched. Unlike other campaigns we can raise a million dollars, put ads on the air and still put a million in the bank because of matching funds.
Our campaign from the beginning has been aggressive and unpredictable. That is part of the key to defeating George Bush and it has clearly worked to get us where we are today in terms of the Democratic nomination.
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Camden, N.J.: What is your assessment of Lieberman's campaign?
Joe Trippi: I think several campaigns including Lieberman seem to have taken the opposite approach - raise their money, don't start the campaign until after Labor Day, horde your resources, etc. That is the tried and true way to do this. Many of the campaigns that have taken that approach are running flat or floundering. Our campaign by being aggressive and starting at a full run and using our resources have gotten clearly into the top tier. We are going to keep doing what we are doing. I don't believe the wait and see method will work. We are taking a totally different approach and believe it is the right one.
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Alexandria, Va.: Joe, are you concerned that Gov Dean might be "peaking" too soon, and that it will be hard to keep up the momentum? After all, New Hampshire and Iowa are months away.
Joe Trippi: We are 16 percent nationally. What I can honestly say to everyone is, if you are going to peak at 16 percent in August or next April you aren't doing enough. We feel we have a lot of support and it is growing.
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Milwaukee, Wis.: I am troubled by the lack of social diversity among the audience in the city rallies. I saw few minorities at our reception here in Milwaukee and the Times article today said that absence was the same in the other cities. Are you aware of the problem and is their some way to highlight Afro-American support by getting an endorsement or have a minority prominent in Dean's campaign?
Joe Trippi: Two things. One, when you start with seven people and $150,000 in the bank you have to keep a very small focus. You can't do too many things in that situation. We determined that we had to focus on four things - Iowa, New Hampshire, the Internet and fundraising. For the first six months of this year, that is all we had the resources to do. With the June 30th quarter surge, we have now been able to hire outreach coordinators in the African-American, Hispanic and Asian-America communities as well as others.
For example, Andy Pringle who was until recently Carol Mosley Braun's campaign manager for president, has joined our campaign. He is our deputy campaign manager and is taking on the responsibility of outreach in these communities. Congressman Major Owens endorsed us last night in New York, a key African American congressman. Many other supporters are joining. We expect you will be able to see significant progress in the next 60 days.
Another indicator that we are on the right track: at one of our rallies in Austin, Tex. several weeks ago we emailed the 481 people we knew supported us in Austin. When we got to the rally there were 3200 people there. That was because the initial email group went out and leafleted the Latino community of Austin as well as others. Of the 3200 people who showed up, nearly half were Latino and nearly two-thirds didn't own a computer. We are seeing more and more that the grassroots movement is reaching beyond the Internet. I would also say that if we are now ahead nationally, as the Zogby polls suggest, than we are probably fairing as well or better than the other major candidates in the race at this stage. It is something we continue to work on but we are making lots of progress.
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washingtonpost.com: That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.
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