"Take America Back" Trippi rehash??

[sandnsea]

I knew Trippi had been around the party for a long time, but I guess I didn't connect the Take America Back to him. Didn't know it's his standard campaign theme. Interesting.

"But it was hard not to notice that all the people surrounding Dean were veterans of the same-old, same-old Democratic Party. Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi is a longtime Democratic political consultant who has worked on the campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart, and in 1988 he even worked for current Dean opponent Dick Gephardt."

"It was not lost on some of us, for instance, that his wooden campaign slogan, "Take America Back," was also used by two other former Trippi candidates: Gephardt in 1988 and Jerry Brown in 1992. Much of Dean's public presentation, in fact, is a rehash of other Democratic campaigns. He makes a joke about Bush being "all hat and no cattle," which was a laugh line in Gephardt's campaign speech earlier this year. And his closer line, "You have the power! You have the power! You have the power!" (delivered in the style of Jesse Jackson's "Keep Hope Alive!" bit) was a Gore line in 2000."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031006&c=5&s=taibbi

[mopinko]

1. all good dems

all good slogans, all good. so what are you tryin' ta say. (like i don't know) was somebody saying that joe trippi was a virgin, or something? and btw, all hat no cattle was already an old, old saying before w was born. there is an anti-shrub website by that name that was around in 2000.

[goodhue]

2. Jerry Brown's slogan was "Take Back America"

NOT Take America Back!

[sandnsea]

3. Oh, exactly the same as Dean's

I was just quoting the article. Sorry.

[goodhue]

5. Trippi had little to do with Jerry Brown in 92

except for producing a couple ads;
Dukakis-vet Steve Schmidt was much more central

[sandnsea]

6. It's still a rehash n/t

[Sharm]

9. re

I'm thinking that it might be more deriviative of the 2000 "Take Vermont Back" campaign slogan, used by Republicans to try to defeat Dean and democrats after he signed Same Sex Unions into law.

Just a thought.

[goodhue]

10. no doubt, but its not credit to Trippi

[no name no slogan]

11. I think Geph may have used it in 1988 too

...back when Trippi was running his show, and when Geph was busy smashing Hondas in front of disgruntled auto workers to show what a he-man he was on trade.

It was the key element that turned me away from Gephardt-- FOR GOOD. Appealing to base racism and jingoism is not something Democrats should do-- the Repubs have done a good enough job of that over the years.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. My favorite part of that article

is this:

"As much as the reporters snickered about the campaign fakery, and occasionally cracked about it in print, there is no question that they were attracted to the big-campaign symbolism like moths to a lamp. To be full of shit in American politics is a signal to our political press that you are serious, and it was quite obvious that the most transparently meaningless or calculating aspects of Dean's behavior were what most impressed the Sleepless Summer press corps.

To wit: Most of the reports filed during the trip focused on the size of the crowds, the amount of money Dean has raised, the "feel of a general election campaign" surrounding his appearances and the sudden departure of his legendary "brusque, angry tone," which incidentally I never saw in the first place. A great many of the conversations among reporters on the plane centered around whether or not Dean had a chance to beat Bush, and these speculations--called horse-racing in the business--dominated the narratives of most of the articles, many of which wondered aloud whether Dean was "too far left" or would "moderate" his rhetoric in time for the real race.

When I asked the reporters on the plane what the value of this kind of reporting was, I got an interesting answer. No fewer than four journalists replied to the effect that unless the electability issue was addressed, "someone like Kucinich" might get the nomination.

"Hell, if it came down to a battle of position papers, Dennis Kucinich might win," laughed Jackson Baker of the Memphis Flyer, incidentally not a horse-racer and one of the true good guys on the plane."


Good to know that the press wants to protect us from "someone like Kucinich" getting the nomination.

If you've ever thought that the candidates are just products being sold to us, you were right.

[goodhue]

7. memorabilia

[TexasPatriot]

8. It was a Reform party mantra too

it's pretty common for outsiders... Clark says the same thing. Generally, there are a LOT of people who feel that the powers that be in Washington dont serve our interests terribly well. They're too busy playing the political influence game.

[dsc]

12. Trippi hadn't worked for any candidate in any capacity

since 1992. I highly doubt that any campaign manager could have said the same thing,