Joe Trippi
Former Campaign Manager, Dean for America
Joe Trippi, Trippi & Associates
Joe Trippi, heralded on the cover of The New Republic as the man who “reinvented campaigning,” was born in California and began his political career working on Edward M. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1980. His work in presidential politics continued with the campaigns of Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt and most recently Howard Dean.
As a campaign manager, Trippi has run presidential, Senate, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns. He was selected by former Vice President Walter Mondale to manage Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in 1984 and later went on to run several key states for the Mondale for President campaign. In 1988, Trippi was the Deputy National Campaign Manager for Richard Gephardt’s presidential campaign.
In 2004, he was National Campaign Manager for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, pioneering the use of online technology to organize what became the largest grassroots movement in presidential politics. Through Trippi’s innovative use of the internet for small-donor fundraising, Dean for America ended up raising more money than any Democratic presidential campaign in history, all with donations averaging less than $100 each. Trippi’s innovations have brought fundamental change to the electoral system and will be the model for how all future political campaigns are run.
Trippi began his work in media consulting at the Democratic media firm of Doak, Shrum and Associates, where he was involved in developing the strategy and producing the media for the successful campaigns of Jerry Baliles for Governor of Virginia and Bob Casey for Governor of Pennsylvania. Trippi was also instrumental in the re-election campaigns of U.S. Senator Alan Cranston of California and Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles.
Joe Trippi has been profiled in GQ, Wired, Fast Company, The New Republic and The New York Times Magazine. He is an MSNBC political analyst and former Harvard University fellow. He currently heads the Washington, DC political consultancy, Trippi & Associates.
In addition to his work in politics, Trippi works with a number of high-tech companies including Wave Systems, Progeny Linux Systems, and Smart Paper Networks.
Trippi is the author of, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everything,” the story of how his revolutionary use of the Internet and an impassioned, contagious desire to overthrow politics as usual grew into a national grassroots movement and changed the face of politics, and indeed many aspects of American life, forever.
The father of three, he lives with his wife, Kathleen Lash, and their terrier, Kasey, on the eastern shore of Maryland.