P O L I T I C S O N L I N E INTERVIEW: JOE TRIPPI talks with Phil Noble of PoliticsOnline. NOBLE: Let's talk about the book and such. This - we're rolling out a new version of our website, and we've got lots of new features. And one of the new features is a regular interview with somebody who's doing interesting things. And can't think of anybody's done more interesting things recently than you in the Dean campaign. So how's - you've written a book. How's the book going? TRIPPI: I have no - I really don't know. I've been, you know, it's a - I've done a lot of stuff, you know, (unintelligible)... got, you know, won some mayors' races and some House races and some Senate races. But now, you know, how you - I didn't have a first clue about how to write a book. I'm actually pretty proud of it, of what the, you know, what came out because my passion's there, and I believe in it. But how it's doing in the bookstores, that's - or how the tour's doing, I just have no clue. Suddenly I'm in a world I don't really understand. But, you know, it's fun to be out there talking to people. NOBLE: Well, I've got about two thirds of the way through it. And it really is good. And that particular passion comes through. And that's so important in this stuff. Tell me, I think, what sort of - the Dean thing, did it surprise you that it happened as quickly as it did, the way it did? TRIPPI: You know, yeah, it kind of did because I had, you know, I actually took the job because - one of the reasons I took it was because I knew pretty certainly that I'd be home in three months. You know, I knew I wanted to try the Internet thing and, you know, knew that. But I also thought, you know, we've got a hundred grand in the bank, and no support out there, or very little, 432 people, I think. And, hey, I'll take the job, I'll do my best and see if it works. But reality is we don't have any - we'll run out of money and go home. That was really what I was thinking. And then we started, you know, to really test out the notion if you could build something different on the 'Net. And it caught on, you know, I didn't - I had the vision for how to build it. I didn't see what it, you know, how fast and how powerful it would really be. So that was a wakeup call, even for me. And that meant, obviously, that I was going to stay a lot longer than three months. And the rest is kind of history, you know, we went from those 432 people to 650,000 people. And they're the reason we were out on that playing field as long as we were. NOBLE: You know, it really is the hockey stick curve of every Internet business plan that was applied to politics. TRIPPI: Yeah, in fact, in the book I talk about that. I talk about how, in all the time I'd worked for high-tech companies like Wave Systems and Progeny Linux Systems and Smart Paper Networks, how many boardrooms I'd been in where we were looking at the - fantasizing about the hockey stick that had happened for so many other high-tech companies before us. And then all of a sudden, in the second or third quarter of the Dean campaign, I'm looking at a chart of the campaign and realize it's a hockey stick, that I pulled it off; but that we pulled it off, not in the corporate world, but in the political world, which is pretty amazing. NOBLE: Let me ask you a question that I've never heard anybody talk about much, but it's always sort of been in my mind as, perhaps, important. Early on, the only - not the only, but early early early on, the gay community knew about Dean and what he had done with civil union. And sort of when nobody else had - knew anything about Dean, the gay community did. And also, with the 'Net, you know, the gay community could participate in a way that some people were comfortable with because it was - you could do it less visibly than in the street. How important, early on, was that - was the gay community online in giving you any critical mass? Or was it just everything else? TRIPPI: Oh, I think, you know, they were there. But I think it was everything. I think it was anti-war folks, it was the gay community, it was young people who just liked someone who was going to not be programmed and actually talk like they do, you know, just off the cuff and real and authentic. And I think it was sort of those, you know, combination of things that led, you know, that led to our success. I don't think it was just one group. NOBLE: No, I didn't mean that it was sort of one group. But I meant just in terms of the very earliest of early dates, when you had 427 people. TRIPPI: Oh. Yeah... NOBLE: You know, that initial spark or critical mass at the very beginning. Was that disproportionately online and gay? TRIPPI: Well, it was definitely online. I don't think it was gay. I don't think it was disproportionate at all. In fact, in the early stages, it was nearly impossible, I mean, I remember we were buying banner ads on Advocate.com, and nothing would happen. And we'd spend... NOBLE: Really. TRIPPI: Yeah, nothing. And I think a lot of it had to do with, at that point, a lot of the rank and file, if you will, of the gay community was unaware that Howard Dean had signed the civil unions law. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: I mean, the leadership did. But the - and I think the average person might have known there was a civil unions law in Vermont or somewhere. And that was great, and they were happy about that. But they didn't connect it to Dean, and they didn't connect it to him. And so, you know, actually, in the early stages, I think it was more of the war and just sort of being authentic and real and getting young people involved. And later, as we started to get more press, and it became more widespread, you know, more widespread knowledge that he had, indeed, signed the civil unions law, that suddenly - and I think then you had sort of the email tree start building of, hey, this guy, you know, fought for us, signed the bill, and then that started growing. But it wasn't - it never really was disproportionately. It was just a - they were a very important support group, and I'm sure were a large part of our low-dollar donations. But they were - it was an overall, like I said, of anti-war, kids, I mean, that was the real phenomenon, I think, was just all the young people that got involved across the country that hadn't been involved before. And I think that had more to do was we were campaigning in their medium. I mean, you know, the 'Net, you know, most - a lot of them watch - spend more time on the 'Net than they do watching television. And I think we were talking in their language and using their medium. And they used their medium to make us bigger. And they were the ones spreading the word. NOBLE: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the sort of early stuff on Meetup. I remember when - I think we - it may be - I was sitting here looking on our website. I think we saw on - we did a little piece in our newsletter, just a - just three lines. And I remember seeing - writing, it was sort of "Dean Is Winning Somewhere." When Dean had, like, 147 people on Meetup, you know, and Kerry or whatever had, what, you know, 12 or whatever, how many people were on Meetup when you guys discovered it, so to speak? How many Dean folks were... TRIPPI: That was under 500. I remember looking at it, and there was, like, one person in Seattle and two in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco and one in New York and one in Chicago. And I, you know, we kind of had a little giggle about it was going to be, you know, it would be very interesting to see how all those folks met up since they were, like, 500 of them, and they were in 320 different towns. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: But we decided right away to embrace it and validate it and put it up on our website that we wanted people to meetup for Dean. And almost overnight, I mean, I think that we put that Meetup link up, and I think we went from 400 to 2,700 people in, like, four or five days. And all of a sudden you could look, and you could see, you know, there were 20 people planning on meeting up in Los Angeles, and 30 people planning on meeting up in Seattle. And that rapidly grew to 8,000. NOBLE: So it was putting - it was putting them on your site is what made it. TRIPPI: Yeah, I think so. I mean, clearly... NOBLE: I don't mean "make it," but, you know... TRIPPI: Yeah, but clearly 500 or so people had found it on their own. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: But it was going to grow pretty slow. You know, there are a lot of folks on Meetup that have died at that point because... NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: ...you can't meet up. So I think, you know, you always get in - on the 'Net stuff, you always - and particularly the Dean campaign, there's always this chicken and egg thing, which came first, which was the catalyst, was it the gay community or the anti-war community, in terms of, you know, initial interest. Was it with meetups? Was it Meetup? Or was it the Dean campaign that made the Meetup thing happen? And, you know, I just know from watching it, it was after we put the icon, the link up on our site that just really started driving growth. And then, then it became both. You know, at some point it got blurry, and you couldn't tell why it was growing, but it was growing fast. And we had 190,000 folks that were meeting on the first Wednesday of every month, which was, again, the other, I think, big, important thing that happened on the 'Net this year, or in the cycle, was a lot of people had wondered, you know, could you get people who were sitting at their laptop or at their desktop to, you know, online, we all knew that they could connect online. The question was, you know, could you use the 'Net to enable people to go do something offline... NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: ...that was powerful. And I think, you know, the Dean campaign, Dean MoveOn, with its candlelight vigils, Dean campaign with MoveOn, with its Meetup tools and - with Meetup in its - our GetLocal tools proved that, between us, that it was doable. NOBLE: Yeah. Talk a little bit about the ramifications for state and local races, in that, I mean, I know Meetup has tried, they've put up the facility where basically any campaign can have a meetup, and they've pushed that. How much do you think this is sort of uniquely presidential, and sort of breaks down simply because, you know, at a state rep race, or even a congressional race, you still sort of know who the 300, 500 activists in the Fifth Congressional District of Texas are. Or... TRIPPI: Oh, you know who the activists are. But there's a whole bunch of people out there who you don't know about who may be for your guy. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: You know, the - I think one of the mistakes people keep making locally is, on the 'Net, keeping the race local. I mean, if you were against the war, you know, have real positions on things, there's a national audience on the 'Net that may be prepared to send you $15 or 25 bucks because you're standing for the right things, and they want a member of Congress who believes that, even if it's a guy in Orange County, California, not, you know, not in their district, where they get to have two members. NOBLE: Yeah, that's... TRIPPI: But I think it's going to change, you know, how people start thinking about this stuff. I think the campaigns get - still get, you know, to the point where they're so focused locally, like they would be on radio and TV, that they don't realize they have a, you know, they have their local email and Internet audience, obviously; but they also have the ability to reach way beyond that and, you know, get somebody from New York to send them a $15 check. NOBLE: That's interesting, yeah. TRIPPI: Or, you know, or do something for them. NOBLE: I mean, you basic- I mean, it's the old globalizing local issues. TRIPPI: Right. And... NOBLE: Do you know if anybody's having any real success with that? I mean, I know there was a congressman... TRIPPI: Yeah, well, the Chandler race in... NOBLE: Yeah, the Chandler, that's the one, yeah. TRIPPI: ...in Kentucky had a lot of success. That was because mostly, though, because the blogosphere sort of embraced that campaign and made it their cause to, you know, raise them some money, and sent people down there, and it worked pretty well. I think there's the Hoeffel race, a campaign in Pennsylvania, is actually doing a lot of pretty cool stuff. But I think... NOBLE: Is that a congressional race? TRIPPI: It's a Senate race against Specter. NOBLE: Oh, yeah, right, right, right, okay. TRIPPI: But, I mean, there's a typical one, I mean, a guy running against Arlen Specter, I think, could make, you know, could build a national support campaign over the 'Net easily. I mean, you know, there's a - you know. So that, you know, it's all - it's about building your local site that makes sure Pennsylvanians know what your policies are and know how to get involved. And, yeah, the guy in Pittsburgh may be more likely go into the Pittsburgh headquarters than use the 'Net because it's local, he can walk right in. But it also, you know, does give you a way to build locally, as well as a national constituency for people who believe Arlen Specter should be removed from office, that, you know, they believe he's on the wrong side of policies, and that they should support Joe Hoeffel. And so I think that that campaign sort of gets that, better than a lot... NOBLE: Who else? Name four or five others around the country at various levels that you think are doing really interesting things. TRIPPI: Well, I think the D Triple C's starting to do some pretty good, cool things. NOBLE: Yeah. I think D-Trip TV, I think, is pretty interesting. TRIPPI: Right. I think Obama, out in Illinois, Senate race. And I think, you know, you got - the really cool thing, though, is not just what's going on with campaigns, what's going - like votervirgin.com is a pretty cool site. And what it is is it's some young... NOBLE: For young voters. You know that... TRIPPI: Right, no. It's about, right, getting young voters to break their virginity and actually vote. And the whole site is, you know, is sort of like a whole... NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: ...inside joke on - like they have safe voting brochures. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: Safe voting pamphlets. And it's okay to vote, you don't have to tell your parents you're doing it. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: I mean, it's that kind of stuff. But again, it's - these are just, you know, a few people who started a site that, you know, may, by the end of this election, have 100,000 voters out there decide they're going to vote for the first time. Why? Because they got caught, you know, got - became part of the votervirgin.com community and actually, for the first time in their lives, vote because of that site and because it's in their medium and their language. And so I think... NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: ...it's not just what the campaigns are doing, you know, it's what - it's what - to affect politics. It's not even what the just special interest groups are using the 'Net to, I mean, they're all doing, you know, all the different labor, everybody, you know, labor, environmental groups, NRA, they're all using the 'Net, too. But I'm not talking really about them. That's okay, that's going to happen. But campaigns are starting to use it more effectively. But what's even more, I think, impressive is how two or three people can start a site that turns out to make a hell of a big difference in this election. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: That were not even - that you and I may not even be aware of. Like Jibjab.com. NOBLE: Yeah. I know they've jumped on my radar screen in the last week. TRIPPI: Look, that's what I'm saying, you know, suddenly... NOBLE: Just amazing stuff, yeah. TRIPPI: You know, suddenly, you know, folks we didn't even know existed a week ago, you know, may have a million readers, you know, a million folks visiting it. So it's kind of cool, you know, I think it's cool on a bunch of fronts. NOBLE: Talk a little bit about the presidential. Everybody's focused on the presidential, of course. I mean, we - I mean, I'm not - in one sense I'm (unintelligible)... I was going to say. I wasn't going to get the rap on the two campaigns. But go ahead, give your - give the rap on the two campaigns online, and then the larger, sort of what you see is happening presidentially. And you sort of touched on it with the independent characters out there. TRIPPI: Well, I mean, I think the campaigns aren't, I mean, the campaigns have clearly embraced the notion that you can raise a lot of money on the Internet. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: And I think the Kerry campaign's doing a great job of that, obviously. You know, we've got parity, the first time, I think, in my lifetime that I can remember the Democratic nominee actually being at near parity, dollar for dollar, with the Republican. NOBLE: I said in April, I thought, before it was all over, Kerry - that Kerry and the Democrats were going to raise more than Bush and the Republicans. And I still think that may well happen. TRIPPI: Right, you know, so that's - I think it is going to happen. And I think that's totally a tribute to the Dean campaign and to what we started, and to the fact that they've done a great job of harnessing the same tools we used. And but yet also, I mean, the biggest thing, probably the biggest event, in hindsight, you know, wasn't the Dean scream, but is going to be when the 300,000 Dean folks went to the Internet and voted to allow the Dean campaign to opt out. Because we would have been stuck at - capped at $45 million if we'd stayed in the public funding system. Kerry went out four days later and said, well, Dean's opted out, and his people voted to let him do it. Our campaign's going to do the same thing. That four-day period where Dean supporters let us opt out and then Kerry followed suit is probably the only reason John Kerry's in this race. Because if he had not opted out, if the Dean campaign had not opened the door to let Kerry opt out, and he hadn't followed that lead, he'd be - he would have been broke back in March. This wouldn't have been a fair fight. I doubt we would have cared who he picked as his VP because it wouldn't matter right now. And I actually think that's probably the biggest moment in the election. NOBLE: Gave him permission, potentially, to do that. I mean, by your opting out it sort of gave him permission to do it. TRIPPI: Not only that, I mean, he said it. I mean, this guy kept saying, "I'm not opting out, I'm not opting out, I'm not opting out. The only reason I will opt out is if Howard Dean opts out." NOBLE: Oh, did (unintelligible)... TRIPPI: And forces me to do it. Oh, yeah, there's zillions of quotes on this. And then we opted out, and he said, "I told you that, if he opted out, I would, and I'm going to. I'm not going to let him go by himself. I'm going to chase him." We were chasing Bush; he was chasing us. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: I mean, we did it - we opted out so we could be competitive with Bush. Kerry opted out so he could compete with us. The side benefit of that he didn't - they didn't understand at the time was that it was going to be the only reason they had a chance of a snowball in hell of being competitive with Bush right now. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: And that wasn't easy, by the way. There weren't anybody - there weren't a whole lot of people inside the Dean campaign who wanted to opt out. I mean, I'm telling - I mean, the governor, our finance team - I mean, the governor was doing his typical fiscal responsibility and conservative thing, where he was like, you know, he was more perplexed about why we were walking away from $19 million of matching funds. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: He wasn't thinking - I don't blame him. He was just not thinking in terms of, you know, of the bigger notion of maybe you could get to $200 million. Even then, we were still just the little engine that could, you know, when we were doing this. So you had to, like, you know, hold your breath and, you know, and pray that it would all work out in terms of the money, and it did. But, you know, it was - it was pretty tough inside to get that vote done. And then to, you know, to watch Kerry, who clearly opted out only to stay in competition with us, not because they even had a - at this point they were - his face was in the dirt. He wasn't even looking at Bush. It was just how could I keep up with Dean. So he opts out to keep up with us. It turns out, I really believe, those four days are the whole reason Kerry's in the race right now. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: And that's not - I'm not talking about his, you know, his excitement, his charisma, or where he is on issues. I'm talking about - and I don't think any of it would have mattered. He'd be being outspent $214 million to $45 million. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: Not a fair fight, you know. NOBLE: Talk a little bit - I know you've got to go. Talk a little bit about how you see beyond the presidential. I mean, I'm sort of like you, I think three months after the presidential, we're going to look back, and we're going to point to about a half a dozen things that we may not even see or know right now that are - that were online things that were significant contributing factors. But get past it to this election, and sort of look two, four, and six years down the road. How quick do you think this sort of shift, vis-à-vis the Internet, is going to take place, that dominance, and how is it going to roll out, do you think? TRIPPI: Well, I think you're going to see - first of all, you've got to look at McCain. In 2000, McCain was the most awesome Internet campaign in America history. 40,000 people had signed up for him. You know? NOBLE: Right. And he raised... TRIPPI: There were no Meetup - yeah, he raised, like, you know, five, six million bucks. There were no Meetup.com tools. There were no GetLocal tools. I mean, they hadn't been developed. Social networking tools like Friendster weren't out there, that we used as DeanLink. We kind of ripped off the Friendster mode and did it as DeanLink. But my - none of that stuff existed. And, you know what, three years later, I mean, three years later, Dean campaign becomes the coolest thing on the Internet and politics, 650,000 people, 50 million bucks. Kerry's got a million people on the 'Net now and $182 million, average donation $108. We... NOBLE: Is that the numbers? TRIPPI: Yeah. NOBLE: 182? TRIPPI: A hundred and - yeah, he has $182 million. Over a million people signed up on the 'Net, and his average donation on the 'Net's 108 bucks. It's, like, mimicking us. We had... NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: Our average donation was about a hundred. So all I'm saying is, you know, if you look at that, I don't know who would have predicted, in 2000, who could have accurately predicted in 2000 that, just three years later, we'd have that rapid a leap in technology and tools that would allow something like the Dean campaign to happen. My, you know, I fervently believe that, by 2008 for sure, we'll all be laughing at the Dean campaign and Joe Trippi's primitive techniques. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: But there's no stopping it. The genie's out of the bottle. The American people figured out that they've got tools that'll let them organize themselves, that their $25 contribution by itself didn't make a damn bit of difference in the system, but that if a million people do it all together, they can change everything. And there's only one medium in the world that lets people connect and get that power together, and it's the 'Net. It's not television. Certainly not going to be direct mail. It's going to be the Internet, you know. So, you know, I think there's no putting that away. What the future looks like, what those tools will be, it'd be like me trying to predict Meetup and, well, blogs even. I mean, blogs barely existed, I mean, in the way we know them today, in 2000. Just the evolution of that, of blogging software, the rating system where, you know, I mean, where people can comment, and everybody in the community can rate the poster, and the best rise to the top, and the crummy folks, you know, or the jerks rise to the, you know, sink to the bottom, those tools didn't exist. So where we're going from here I think is an even more rapid future in which, you know, I believe it can happen any day. I've always believed this. I believe tomorrow morning, if John Kerry went out there and said, I'm opting out in the general election, I'm placing the entire future of my candidacy in the hands of the American people, if you don't fund it, it will not be funded, if John Kerry, and if he does do that at the convention... NOBLE: Right. Is that - do you know that there's some discussion about it underway? TRIPPI: There's been rumors about that they're thinking about it. But I have no idea if they're real. I've been urging this since, you know, the day Dean got out. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: If he did that at the convention, it - I think the spontaneous combustion of the American people buying their government back would be, I mean, would just be one of the most unbelievable things. And I don't think the Kerry campaign knows what it would ignite if it did it. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: I mean, to hell with the $75 million in federal funding. And people keep complaining, Trippi, come on, you jerk, the 'Net's not about the money. Well, politics is about the money. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: And, you know, these guys have had 631 pioneers and rangers ponying up a lot of dough. And you've got to understand that a $200 million to $45 million differential would be near death in politics. And the will of the people is being subverted by a horribly messed-up system. And the way to crash that system is by overpowering it with money and support. And the 'Net can do that. And I think Kerry could launch it in a day. In other words, you know, I kind of think it's like, you need one huge event like that. NOBLE: Yeah. TRIPPI: And if Kerry grasped it, it would happen this cycle. I mean, you're asking what about the future, you know. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: What I'm saying is, this could literally happen this cycle. But, yeah, it's going to happen. I'm absolutely convinced this moment's going to happen, where millions of people go to the 'Net and, in one day, change the entire system. But - and just turn it upside down. But, you know, whether it - I could write a scenario, tell you a scenario where it would happen right now, you know, in the next week. NOBLE: Right. That's the only way (unintelligible). TRIPPI: But it may be 2006, it may be 2008, but it's going to happen. It's inevitable, it really is. NOBLE: Let me ask you one final question. There's a... TRIPPI: Yeah, I've really got to go in two minutes, man. NOBLE: You probably know Charles, I think it's Charles Moore at Harvard's come up - has this idea that he calls the rise of the second superpower, that basically says that an empowered global populace is the only real alternative to U.S. economic and military might, be it a good thing or a bad thing. Talk about how you - what you see globally happening with this sort of political empowerment. TRIPPI: Yeah, just ask me the last part again? I'm sorry, I lost it. NOBLE: What do you see happening globally in terms... TRIPPI: Oh. NOBLE: ...of the political empowerment, where it's going and that sort of thing. TRIPPI: Yeah, you're seeing this all over the place. I was talking to a guy at a big conference in Barcelona who is sort of the Trippi counterpart, or whatever you want to call - the Internet guru of Bulgaria. And he had, you know, he started stuff when there were only 50 people in the entire nation on the 'Net. And... NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: ...they're up to 1.6 million, I think it's something like 20 percent of the voting public in Bulgaria is now connected in some way through all of his efforts. And you don't - nobody runs for anything without connecting to his organization. But the funny thing about it was he told me a story about sitting down with a former KGB agent in Bulgaria. He went to a lot of pains to explain to me that there's no such thing as a former KGB agent. NOBLE: Right. TRIPPI: And then he said the agent turned to him and said, "Look, it's very nice, I'm very happy that you talk so much about using the Internet to create change. What worries me is you actually are going to change things." And so you see this happening, not just here, but in places like Bulgaria. And it's clear that I think you're going to have - the Internet's going to be a way to connect to causes and issues and candidates in, you know, across the globe, and have a real impact on our future. And I think that's a good thing because it's democracy the way democracy was supposed to be, with people actually engaged and active again. Which is - all television does is inspire more sitting on the couch to watch more television. So that's why the book's called "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," and it's available on Amazon.com. NOBLE: I was going to say, that's a good place to end it. The revolution continues. TRIPPI: Yeah. NOBLE: Thanks, Joe. TRIPPI: Thank you, man. NOBLE: All right. TRIPPI: Bye. NOBLE: Bye. END INTERVIEW WITH JOE TRIPPI Transcribed 07/21/04 • Elaine Farris • 760-248-2070