Review of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Joe Trippi
Joe Trippi seems like a cool, idealist guy who is very fanatic for the good cause, in this case the democratic party and issues like healthcare and poverty. His growing up and getting into politics reads like a novel; you almost start feeling the same as Trippi during all his ups and downs. Miserabely failed campaigns, opportunistic candidates, personal problems,nothing is left unspoken.
Trippi is a experienced campaigner and so there are a lot of things to be learned from this book. The way it handles new technologies though might turn out to be a bit too optimistic.
Trippi tells how the Howard Dean for President campaign got involved in using the internet as a means of getting popular around the country. After initial distrust by the candidate himself and his staff a cooperation with the website MeetUp.com turns out to be such a enormous succes that Trippi gets a carte blanche. They start a blog and organize meetings for Meetup.com-members all over the country. At the end of the year a larger sum of money has been donated to Howard Dean than to any democratic candidate in history.
The book is very interesting to read, but maybe for the wrong reasons. The look-behind-the-scenes is amazing. At one point Trippi tells the story of a candidate who makes a pro-choice ad, and then decides he might as well make a pro-life ad as well; the filmequipment is paid for anyway! Secondly, the story of a candidate getting more and more popular, breaking records, and then finally making a fool of himself in front of millions of people reads like a boys book. The messian messages of democracy coming back, people getting involved again and the old elite getting blown away sounds, only two years later, a bit old fashioned though.
The problem with Trippi’s look on the developments in the Dean campaign might be that he was too close, and got too caught up in the enthousiasm of everything that now he thinks we’re at the dawn of a revolution.
The revolution will not be televised, but we’ll sure ass hell be able to see it on
YouTube…
