DEAN CAMPAIGN SHAKEUP

Trippi's gone. (careful, it's a Pickler)

Howard Dean shook up his presidential campaign on Wednesday after absorbing back-to-back defeats, replacing his campaign manager Joe Trippi and bringing in a longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore to try and stabilize his faltering candidacy, Democratic sources said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Dean told congressional supporters in a telephone conference call that he was installing Roy Neel as campaign CEO. Dean added that Trippi would remain on the payroll, the source said. But another source said that Trippi had decided to depart the campaign rather than accept the change.

In the call with lawmakers, Dean expressed his determination to remain in the race, and said he hopes to finish at least second in the upcoming round of primaries and caucuses.

At the same time, several lawmakers bluntly told the former Vermont governor that he needed to demonstrate his ability to win in states -- and that second place wouldn't suffice. "He said he understood," said one lawmaker who was involved in the call.

Before leaving the campaign, Trippi thanked the staff, telling them how proud he was of their efforts. "I may be out of the campaign, but I'm not out of the fight," Trippi was quoted as saying.

From the looks of it, Joe Trippi was well-suited to manage Phase 1 of the Dean campaign (creating an large organization and revolutionizing the way money is raised, yadda yadda), but rather ill-suited to manage Phase 2 (you know, the actual short-term campaigning and voting). Trippi's oddly narrow-visioned late strategy of "endorsements first! everyone else, just hold on!" didn't exactly come through with flying colors in Iowa.

This is quite a shakeup, but will it help? It wont matter if Dean doesn't win at least one state in the next batch of primaries. Hell, if he has to, he should just hang out in Delaware all week, a state in which none of the other candidates will seriously campaign, and hand out orange caps to the entire population of Dover.

Reports in the last 18 hours have said that Dean doesn't want to limit his focus to a couple of the seven February 3rd states, but rather wants to keep his campaign spread out. Baaaad idea, and I wonder if there was a Trippi/Dean disagreement in this matter that lead to the end of Trippi as manager. Why does Kerry have all the momentum? Because he pooled all his energy into a state, and came out with a win. Superficial as it is, people respond to success, and a string of 2nd and 3rd place finishes next week for Dean, even if he picks up a handful of delegates in each state, will not be perceived as success.