Trippi Says His Work for Dean Cost Him Money
Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for presidential candidate Howard Dean, gave a spirited defense of his work for the foundering candidate Monday, saying that he lost money by devoting himself to Dean and that he planned to organize a broader political movement.
Responding to a Times report Sunday that his consulting firm was paid $7.2 million for services to the campaign in 2003, Trippi said the article unfairly left the impression that he had gotten rich from his effort.
Most of the money paid to Trippi, McMahon and Squier, a Virginia-based media and consulting firm, was used to buy airtime for Dean.
During a speech to about 200 people at a San Diego conference on political technology, Trippi was asked about his financial arrangement with the campaign. As Dean's campaign manager, he was paid based on commissions for advertising buys, rather than a salary.
Trippi, who left the campaign in January, said he had deliberately refrained from learning how much he and his partners had kept in commissions from the ad purchases.
After being questioned by a reporter on the matter Friday, Trippi said he contacted his colleagues and learned that they had charged the Dean campaign a 7% commission -- which the firm said is less than half the typical 15% commission.
Trippi said his one-third share amounted to $165,000.
The campaign has also reported to federal regulators that it paid Trippi's firm $312,000 for political consulting, according to tabulations by PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks campaign spending.
Trippi's comments about his finances came in answer to a moderator's question.
He said he had waived any direct salary from the campaign, didn't control its advertising purchases and lost all his regular political and corporate clients when he joined the Dean campaign full time.
"I've never done a damn thing in politics for money," Trippi said in an interview after his speech.
Widely recognized in Internet circles as the visionary behind Dean's innovative use of technology, Trippi said there were few things he would have done differently. He said he believed Dean -- now winless after 12 contests in the Democratic primaries -- has come to the brink of elimination mainly because of attacks by his rivals and media scrutiny.
"It wasn't a dot-com crash. It was a dot-com miracle getting shot down," he said.
