From the news
this morning:
Even after the race had seemed to take shape without him, his son, Greg Kelly, set up meetings for him with national consultants Pat Caddell and Joe Trippi. Separately, Greg Kelly and the police commissioner’s wife met with Ed Rollins about the framework of a campaign.
Greg Kelly asked Trippi and Caddell, both Fox News contributors, to talk to his father. Greg Kelly received a campaign strategy memo from Rollins — who was not told about the Caddell or Trippi meetings — and who had already begun reaching out to Republican operatives that included pollster Ed Goeas and media consultant Larry McCarthy. After the Bloomberg meeting to say he was running. Greg Kelly reached out to people whom he’d brought into the conversation—“we’re going,” he was saying, asking people whether they would be ready to formally commit, those sources said.
Politico disclosed this morning that NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly—leader of the country's largest racial profiling organization—was close to entering the NYC mayoral race. Kelly's son is FOX NY's Greg Kelly. Greg Kelly recruited the washed up and confused "Democratic Strategist" Pat Caddell and, in a surprise to me, Joe Trippi to convince his dad to run. The article also implies that Caddell and Trippi, both employed by the Fox News Channel, were prepared to sign up for a Kelly campaign.
Caddell is a joke, but Trippi, I thought, was a committed progressive who worked for Dean and Edwards. There are obvious problems with both Dean and Edwards, but at least they're not proponents of racial profiling like the great Ray Kelly.
This news strengthened my belief that a lot of political operatives are merely hired mercenaries out not to change our politics and policies, but to fatten their pockets. Sadly, Trippi is now a part of this ilk.