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Trippi Holds National Stategy Conference Call
Campaign Manager Joe Trippi spoke with reporters in a national conference call at noon eastern today to make a major strategy announcement.... Even before the story hits the wires, we're bringing you the news here on Blog for America.
Joe Trippi speaks with reporters on a conference call at Burlington Headquarters today. Also in photo (left to right): Dep. Communications Director Courtney O'Donnell, Internet Communications Dir. Mathew Gross, Campaign Spokesperson Jay Carson. Photo by John Pettitt.
Trippi began the call by metioning polls out this morning that show Governor Dean leading in Florida and South Carolina. "But, as the Governor says," Trippi said, "The only polls that really matter are those that begin on January 19th.
"We see a further retreat by other candidates into a 1- or 2- state strategy," Trippi continued. "However, we are continuing with our 50-state strategy, because that is the only strategy that can win the nomination and defeat George Bush in the general election.
"Continuing with that strategy, beginning on Monday we will begin a sustained television ad buy in South Carolina, and we'll stay on the air through the South Carolina primary. Also on Monday we'll go up on the air in New Mexico, and we'll stay up through February 3rd. In both states we're adding considerable resouces in terms of organization and grassroots efforts on the ground. And within the next 7 to 10 days, we'll also go up in the state of Arizona and the state of Oklahoma. Those two will also stay up until the elections there.
"We have plans for Missouri, Delaware, and North Dakota. As we develop those plans we'll make you aware of them.
"Make no mistake," Trippi said. "We intend to win every one of those states, and we believe the Dean campaign is the only campaign strong enough to do that."
Trippi then opened the call up to questions. The first question from a reporter was, why do this now?
"This is the time to do this. We're sixty days out from the February 3rd elections. We've maintained that this is a compressed calendar, and we've been the only campaign building a 50-state organization to compete in all 50 states. We've been the first campaign on the ballots in Utah, Oklahoma, Texas. We're the only campaign on the ballot today in 17 states.
"We intend to win Iowa, and we're going to fight for every vote there. We intend to win New Hampshire, and we're going to fight for every vote there. This is our push into the February 3rd states, and we intend to run the same campaign there that we've run in Iowa and New Hampshire, and we intend to win."
Another reporter asked how the Dean campaign was going to afford a push to win all seven February 3rd states.
"Our resources are coming from the same source as they always have-- from the American people themselves, through hundreds of thousands of contributions averaging $77. We believe that we will continue to grow and will have 2 million Americans willing to give $100 to defeat Bush. And when we do, we'll have $200 million against Karl Rove's $200 million and then we'll see who wins."
On the phone, a reporter asked how the Dean campaign's expansion into the February 3rd states might influence those who are trying to stop Dean.
"It's clear we're under continous attack, let's see who has the resources now to follow us. The RNC, the Club for Growth, and now Lieberman are all attacking today, which illustrates our point that there is no bright line between the general election and the primaries."
Trippi also told reporters about an idea that came directly from you:
"Also on Sunday, we'll be starting a 30-minute program in Madison, Wisconsin. The show has bio information on the Governor, talks about his positions, and encourages people to join our grassroots efforts. We're building a strong grassroots campaign in Wisconsin, and this is an idea that came from our Internet supporters. Someone suggested it on the blog as a way to reach out to more people, and we thought it was an interesting idea and we decided to try it. If it works, we'll expand the program into other states like Washington to continue building national support for Dean, but the first instance of that is in Wisconsin this Sunday."