Dan Gillmor weighs in on present shakeups in the Dean campaign (AP Story on yesterday's campaign manager switch)– and what role the 'Net plays in all of this.
Neel isn't just a Gore associate. He was head of the United States Telecom Association, probably the single most retrograde Washington lobbying organization around — the mouthpiece for the local phone monopolies that have worked so hard to thwart serious competition in telecommunications. In other words, Neel is as inside-the-beltway as you can get. Now he's running an "outsider's" campaign. Sure thing.
Trippi was far from perfect as an operative. But under his guidance, Dean emerged in the first place as a credible candidate. And Trippi, via Dean's candidacy, was a catalyst who helped change the rules of national campaigning in ways that will reverberate through politics until they've been absorbed by everyone in the political game. The Net helped make Dean, and it was Trippi who grasped what was happening early on and convinced Dean to take advantage of it. Of course, the true revolutionaries here have been the Dean supporters who understood the power they could bring from the edges and apply to the center. They will not go away, however much the political establishment may want them to.
