Joe Trippi To Aide Governor's Race Against McAuliffe

The Virginia gubernatorial race is getting a distinctly national campaign feel to it. On Wednesday, Rep. Brian Moran's campaign announced that prominent media consultant Joe Trippi would serve as general strategist for the Virginia Democrat.

The hiring ups the ante a bit in the off-year primary. Trippi, who was one of the top-ranking officials for John Edwards' presidential campaign and ran Howard Dean's effort in 2004, is known as a forward-looking, tech savvy operative. He also has a somewhat fractious history with the Clinton machine, owing to his preference for outsider insurgent candidates. In one of the more contentious moments of the Democratic primary, he called Mark Penn out for twice mentioning the word "cocaine" on air when discussing Barack Obama's admitted and long-passed use of drugs.

Now Trippi will be leading the charge against another Clinton insider, Terry McAuliffe, in what is shaping up to be a high-priced, emotionally charged Democratic primary. In an entry announcing his hiring on Daily Kos, Trippi offers a pretty overt outline of how he wants the race framed: with Moran as the Obama figure and McAullife representing the party elite.

"I know how important this campaign will be," he writes. "We cannot go back to the way politics was. Like Obama, Brian Moran embraces a politics powered by the people, empowering supporters, not relying on millions of high-dollar donations and the status-quo party establishment."

Where the third candidate, State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, lies in this formulation remains to be seen.

Comments

[joeinvt]

11:20 AM on 01/22/2009

McAuliffe raised money but had no success otherwise heading up the DNC and is in the camp that tried to derail and denigrate Howard Dean's work as his successor at the DNC. He's got his work cut out for him against Joe Trippi.

[LondonTownNY]

05:04 AM on 01/22/2009

McAuliffe is a hatchet man and a reminder of everything wrong with Clinton politics.

[ggmome]

02:25 AM on 01/22/2009

As a Virginian, and a Democrat, I just want a Governor who will have the ability to overcome the ornery Good Ole Boys in the VA Congress so that 'progressive steps can be made to move VA out of the 18th Century. Intra State Transportation, is desparately needed

Take 10 hours by Bus, to get from SW VA to Norfolk. Tracks, but no Trains. Towns are Isolated from each other, as well as the rest of the world, which stagnates the Ignorance Quotient in this area. Clogs are the order of the day with red mud all over them.

[wonder6789]

02:01 AM on 01/22/2009

MORE POWER TO YOU, JOE TRIPPI !

PUT OUT THE BLUE DOG MAFIA BOSS !

[truegreen]

11:25 PM on 01/21/2009

Trippi is going to run circles around McAuliffe.

[TJCole]

10:58 PM on 01/21/2009

I hope Trippi is successful as per usual..

[Bitsko]

09:19 PM on 01/21/2009

Just combine the two and run them as Trippi Terry.

[suzyku]

08:22 PM on 01/21/2009

Good, I hope Trippi is successful. I do not like or admire Terry McAuliffe at all. He's a sleaze.

[mam]

09:39 PM on 01/21/2009

Agreed. Go Joe!

[ScandalousCandice7]

07:29 PM on 01/21/2009

I hope McAullife goes down in a blaze of shi. I hope they drudge up all the campaign c-rap including his involvement with the Peter Paul/Rendell/Clinton connection.

[maxfax]

07:06 PM on 01/21/2009

Payback?

[YeahDonkey]

06:46 PM on 01/21/2009

Oh Terry, have you been huffing the same glue as Mark Penn?

This will not end well for you Terry, I see a total meltdown during the Gov primary debate, and when things get ruff the Clintons are going to wish they never met you.

[SouthernYankeeBelle]

06:33 PM on 01/21/2009

Why do democratics alway eat their own? The republicans will support their own even when they have been proven wrong. Note Senator Stevens and the senate giving him a round of applause. Come on folks. Discuss the issues fine. Don't eat thy follow democratic.

[Josh McDonald]

08:13 PM on 01/21/2009

You just don't get it. Progressives, like Obama and Moran and myself, aren't looking to be part of the club. We actually want to fix the country. This isn't about eating our own. This is about doing what is right. We will oppose ANYONE, Republican or Democrat or Independent, who we feel threatens our nation.

Terry has proved himself unworthy of this post and I have little doubt that he will be defeated.

[EndangeredJackalope]

12:01 AM on 01/22/2009

exactly. Its principle over party.

[ddanimal]

06:03 PM on 01/21/2009

Let all hope for more defeats for the DLC and the Clinton machine.

When Clinton was president, he could have made many reforms that Obama is now delivering. But CLinton didnt. Clinton betrayed his promises and progressives.

[harrymellon]

05:50 PM on 01/21/2009

Yeah Joe...stomp out the corrupt Clinton crime-family political machine. They like to keep Virginia and all its secrets and skeletons close to the vest.

[crewzinny]

05:37 PM on 01/21/2009

Wasn't this the guy that kept saying during the dem. primary for president that it would be over on SUPER TUES with Hillary winning? Go Joe. Unfortunately the press brought down Howard Dean after Iowa, but he showed through Obama that his strategy is of the people in every state. BTW I am from ny

[PoliticalAmazon]

05:57 PM on 01/21/2009

He really is a nutball. I thought he was on meth during the primary.