Strategist explains online efforts

Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign manager and John Edwards’ chief strategist in 2008, spoke to students Monday night about the intersection of technology and political campaigns.

His speech was much anticipated by members of UNC Young Democrats, who paid Trippi about $10,000 for his talk, said Young Democrats co-president Charlie Sellew.

Trippi raised significant amounts of campaign money through online donations when working for Dean and Edwards and was one of the first political workers to successfully use the Internet to connect candidates and voters.

Trippi said today’s generation of students are a far more technologically savvy generation than their parents were.

“You were born with this stuff in your hands and know how to use it,” he said.

Trippi said when he first started working in politics, it was more difficult to connect the voting population with the candidates, but that Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube have changed that.

“Have you ever heard that it’s the economy, stupid? … It’s the network, stupid,” he said.

When working for Dean’s campaign, Trippi worked to create DeanTV, a Web site that accepted user submissions.

It had 190,000 users who posted videos, songs and other forms of support for Dean. Trippi said he considered it a prelude to YouTube.

After a question and answer session following the speech, a student asked why Dean lost the presidential race if his campaign was at the forefront of technology.

“The Internet didn’t lose the campaign. The campaign lost the campaign,” Trippi replied.

The Obama campaign, which was so successful at mobilizing voters through online resources, benefitted from Trippi’s work with Dean’s campaign, he said.

“He could go to school on everything we messed up on,” Trippi said.

Trippi then shifted into current politics, giving his own version of Obama’s inaugural address and re-wording it to reflect his view that it would take the entire nation’s support to pass health care legislation.

“I’m not going to pass health care, and those guys on the Hill aren’t going to pass health care. You’re going to pass it,” he said.

Junior political science major Alissa Ellis said she was interested to hear from Trippi in light of the recent scandal involving Edwards.

But Trippi was reluctant to discuss his work with the former senator and presidential candidate.

“I thought it was interesting how he tactfully avoided talking about the John Edwards scandal,” Ellis said.

Trippi said he hoped the students would leave with the message to take initiative to enact social and political reform.

“Be the change,” he said.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.