I've read this in a few other places as well, but Dan predicts that Rep. Mike Capuano (Somerville) will run for the dems against...who? Mitt "I Want to be President" Romney?? Kerry "Who?" Healey?? I'm not ready to jump on any bandwagon, as I'd personally love to see Robert Reich try for governor again. But I happen to have lived in Somerville when Capuano was first elected, and I know him a bit. He's a good guy, and we could do a lot worse. In fact, since Weld vacated the premises we have done nothing but worse, with a steady stream of ambitious incompetents occupying the office. Weld himself was a bright guy, but lazy and under-involved in his job. So someone like Capuano, who is a worker and intelligent could be just the thing in 2006.
As for Trippi/Dean, I have little to add to the volumes that have already been written, but I love what Dan writes:
- In general, though, what Trippi doesn't get is that, in retrospect, it's clear that there never was a Dean campaign. There was a Trippi campaign, and for a while it was impressive. But Dean himself - a smart, somewhat unpleasant, fiscally conservative former governor from a microscopic state - was never more than a blank slate on which Trippi could try out his innovative ideas. By using the Internet to build a decentralized, grassroots campaign, Trippi was able to capitalize on Democratic anger toward the Bush administration and especially its war policies at a time when the more-mainstream candidates were trying to take a more cautious path.
Trippi generated a great deal of excitement, especially among politically involved young people (a tiny group), over the idea of an in-your-face anti-war movement. Dean himself was never particularly important. If he was, well, maybe someone might have actually voted for him. Instead, he was an also-ran, filling the left-wing (despite Dean's actual views) truth-telling slot that might have been taken by Dennis Kucinich had Dean never run.
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