Six years ago, Joe Trippi was heralded as the man who was reinventing campaigning for the Internet era on behalf of the outsider who nearly became the Democratic standard-bearer.
In the 2010 cycle, he’s becoming known as the man throwing bombs at the establishment working for a string of primary challenges, most notably Jeff Greene in Florida, at a time when Democrats are fighting hard to avoid them.
He pushes back hard against the label, but Democratic establishment types are now calling the strategist a “mischief-maker” as he takes aim at the party’s powers-that-be in a cycle where anti-incumbent sentiment is running high.
But this isn’t about being “anti-Democratic establishment, that’s crap,” Trippi said, arguing that the same Democrats criticizing him now were fearful in 2008 that he was harming the “inevitable'” nominee Hillary Clinton.
“It’s anti-status quo….I think a lot of the energy on the Democratic side is diminished and that most of the energy right now is on the right.”
While Trippi agreed to an interview, he added that he would “rather be doing almost anything else.”
“Let’s just get the hatchet job done,” he said before talking for 40 minutes in response to about a dozen questions, then calling back three times with more to say. Continue reading here.
