The Trippi post-mortems

We had really geared up for what we thought was going to be a front runner’s campaign. It’s not going to be a front-runner’s campaign. It’s going to be a long war of attrition. What we need is decision making that’s centralized. (emphasis added) That’s Howard Dean quoted in the New York Times story on ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

We had really geared up for what we thought was going to be a front runner's campaign. It's not going to be a front-runner's campaign. It's going to be a long war of attrition. What we need is decision making that's centralized. (emphasis added)

We had really geared up for what we thought was going to be a front runner’s campaign. It’s not going to be a front-runner’s campaign. It’s going to be a long war of attrition. What we need is decision making that’s centralized. (emphasis added)

That’s Howard Dean quoted in the New York Times story on Joe Trippi’s resignation. The piece also observes that Dean only has enough cash on hand for another week of campaigning. For more on the Trippi angle, go see Noam Scheiber’s exercise in self-criticism. Three thoughts on that quote: 1) If you’re John Kerry you’re feeling very, very happy right now. Kerry has co-opted a lot of Dean’s message without Dean’s baggage, leaving the Good Doctor little to do but sound like he’s declaring war on the Democratic Party. The best thing for Kerry is to have Dean continue to make statements like this. 2) If you’re John Kerry you’re feeling slightly ambivalent about the long haul. On the one hand, as Scheiber puts it:

[T]he perfect stormers probably scared off a significant number of Iowans, who took one look at their nose-rings and their died hair and decided that they had nothing to talk about.

On the other hand, Kerry will need those voters in battleground states come November, especially if the South doesn’t matter. Will Deaniacs retreat from the system as if their candidate flames out? Or will they go and vote for Kerry? 3) The Feiler Faster Thesis strikes again!! In the span of a month, Howard Dean has gone from looking like William Jennings Bryan to….. Harold Stassen. [So he’s gone from looking like a three-time loser to an eight-time loser!–ed.]

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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