Joe Trippi

A long long time ago when I was on the Santa Clara County Democratic Committee, one of my fellow committee members was a San Jose student named Joe Trippi.  I knew Joe very well; he took a number of my classes, and he was president of the student government at San Jose State.

Trippi went on to become a nationally known political consultant, one of the best.  He managed the Howard Dean campaign, and his innovative use of computer technology was later used with great success by the Obama campaign.

Trippi was quoted in the New York Times today in a column by Suzy Khimm on how the Democrats could do better.  Trippi commented on the fact that while the Dems won the last two presidential elections, they were losing in Congress and in state houses around the country.

“We’ve been doing this backwards.  This mistake is thinking that we get behind a progressive candidate for president, and that will solve all our problems.”

“There’s no progressive repository to keep the movement intact for the next progressive candidate–or the progressive candidate in California or Texas or wherever,” Trippi noted.

Pennsylvania is the perfect example of what Joe Trippi is talking about.  While the Koch Brothers are funding local groups and local candidates, the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania hasn’t even recruited candidates in many of the state legislative races.  We need to run candidates everywhere.  Yes, Hillary and Bernie are great, but we need Democratic candidates in Franklin Township or Parryville or to run against Jerry Knowles.  You build movements from the bottom up.  Joe Trippi knows that.