The Future's So Bright

Alternet's Editor Safir Ahmed caught up with Joe Trippi in San Francisco while he was promoting his new book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Ahmed spoke with Trippi about the book, the future of the Internet, and the prospects of the Democrats in 2004.

Safir Ahmed: The Dean campaign is history, so what are you up to now?

Joe Trippi: I just got done writing the book, so I am out there spreading the word about it. I've also got two or three candidates. The Dean campaign was over so late that most of the candidates already hired their people. There were a couple of candidates who didn't fire me when I did the Dean campaign – Tim Holden in Pennsylvania, which is going to be a real tough one, Jim Moran in Virginia – those are the two Congressionals I have. And I just signed up to help Bob Hertzberg, who's running for mayor of Los Angeles in 2005, doing Internet and media. And other than that, I'm doing MSNBC and Change for America, really trying to keep that side of getting people involved and active.

Ahmed: Are you involved in any way with Dean's new venture, Democracy for America?

Trippi: No.

Ahmed: Reading through your book, what I find striking is your optimism. You have an incredible amount of hope and optimism about the Internet as a tool for democracy, for change in general.

Trippi: I believe that it's the last hope. If we are held hostage to broadcast politics, there is no hope. I really believe that. The only hope is for the American people, or enough Americans – we need two or three million Americans – to get connected enough.

Ahmed: Are you talking about electoral politics, or beyond that?

Trippi: Yes, way beyond that.

Ahmed: You talk about everything in your book from corporations to online companies like eBay...

Trippi: eBay is not an auction site, it's a community. I think that's what we need to do – build an an active community, a community that's actively involved in policy and the future of the country. I mean, if we had two or three million Americans that were active, just look at the money! If they each gave $100, you'd have $200-300 million, which would totally turn upside down the way politics is funded. We are already seeing that a little, Kerry having brought in $182 million. But it's not just the money. It's bringing politics back into our civic community. Because television took people out of it – it was about raising money to fight TV ads to pound on each other, which gets people disengaged and fed up. And when you whack one politician who is sleazy on TV, it makes everybody think all politicians are sleazy, which isn't true. It's true of a lot of them, but not all, and it ruins democracy. One attack TV ad on one politician hits the whole system in a way that makes people not want to get involved, not want to make a difference. Now, I think for the first time you've got the Internet. And the Internet has matured; that's the other thing. You needed eBay and AOL and Amazon to happen, people needed to know that they could use their credit card and the book would show up, people needed to know that they could make a contribtution to campaigns and that their credit card wasn't going to be stolen.

Ahmed: Talking of optimism, you're on the record saying that you think the Democrats are going to win the White House and Congress this year. Why do you believe that?

Trippi: Well, we are competitive. The most important thing that happened this year was when thousands of Americans went to DeanforAmerica.com and voted to have him opt out of the public financing system – 300,000 of them voted to let Dean opt out. Karl Rove didn't plan on that. He was planning on the Democrats doing the goodie-two-shoes thing and staying within the system, having $45 million dollars, being broke because of their own primary, having spent $45 million on just winning the damn nomination by March. Karl Rove planned to hammer the bankrupt nominee until the conventions. We opted out because the people gave us the go-ahead to do it, and without that cover, I don't think we would have been able to do it. But once we had that cover, John Kerry had cover too, so he opted out.