Trippi in the News
Slate Magazine wrote an article about Republican online politics and whether or not the GOP can catch up. Trippi was quoted twice:
Another reason the right can’t simply imitate the left is there’s no “unifying grievance” like the Iraq war—at least not yet. For one thing, Obama hasn’t done anything particularly controversial. “There’s no fuel in the stove yet,” says Joe Trippi, who was Howard Dean’s media guru in 2004.
And:
The “rightroots” could still be a long way off. For one thing, Obama simply isn’t Bush. “I think there’s a lot of passion in the country to throw partisanship out the window,” says Trippi. That fact “could be a decelerator.”
The end of the article reads like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”:
Whatever happens, it has to occur organically, says Henke. That’s not easy for Republicans, who are used to top-down organization. It requires ceding control. It also requires listening. But if the party is going to tell a story about the Obama administration, it has to come from the bottom up. “Organic” … “ceding control” … “bottom up.” This should be interesting.
But the most interesting part of the article to me was the mention of Sarah Palin:
The “rightroots” will need a Howard Dean—someone to harness their energy in the political realm. The name that came up most in conversation was Sarah Palin. McCain’s online donations exploded when he introduced her in August, and she still boasts a passionate online following.
Feb 3rd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Trippi is no doubt a hard left partisan; with avid criticism of the Republican right, in many regards. But he makes a great point on the differences between the Democrat’s successes with blogs and social networking tools versus the Republicans lack of ability to successfully use the same technologies.
IMHO, the success of the Democrats in this recent election was partly the result of mobilizing masses; beyond more than just collective ideals, but through collective interaction and promotion. Social networking technology facilitates this goal. Meanwhile, the Republicans’ traditional, sometimes obsessive focus on “individualism” prevents that same level of cooperation and interaction. Many have an overly cautious fear of being identified as a component of a larger group—with the result of a minimal, and rather muted organic mobilization.
The modern Republican Party is top-down in its decision making because that is what traditionally has kept the party together—It’s easier to control policy and people that way. It IS a power base. When many, not one, break the bounds of a decision making structure and work towards creating grass-roots, bottom-up emergent ideas… things can have a way of changing.
And sometimes, if those ideas and people are popular enough, and there is collective interaction and promotion of it, they’re even successful at winning an election. The 44th President is proof of that.