De New York Times praatte na met voormalig campagneleider van Howard Dean, Joe Trippi. De aardigste vragen:
What was the high point of the Dean campaign for you? It would have to be the Sleepless Summer Tour that happened back in August, September, where you just had a real outpouring of support. Even we were shocked by it. These were people who organized these rallies themselves. We just showed up. I mean, just thousands and thousands of people who came out.
[…]
If you were to give one reason for the campaign's collapse, what would it be? You have a party that's tried to make every rule that it can to stop an insurgent. But at the same time -- it's not Al Gore's endorsement -- what I'm saying is, him endorsing us was a good thing. But at the same time, the unintended consequence of it was that the second Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean, alarms went off in newsrooms and at every other campaign headquarters. At the campaign headquarters, they all had meetings and said, ''We've got to stop Howard Dean right this second.'' That's what the Al Gore endorsement meant. It meant, We've got to kill this guy or he's going to be the nominee.
[…]
Do you think that when it's all over and some time has passed, you'll go back up to Burlington and have dinner with Governor Dean and talk about the campaign that was?
I'd like to think so. But I don't know.
gepubliceerd door Marc op vrijdag, februari 27, 2004 #