Did Trippi spend too much money?

[Meldread]

I've heard rumors that one of the reasons Dean decided to demote Trippi (which consequently caused Trippi to leave) was because Trippi was horribly mis-managing the campaign money. I heard that they spent 10 Mill in Iowa and probably at least 5 Mill in New Hampshire. Anyone confirm that?

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[jenk]

1. drudge says 40 million in both

[SadEagle]

3. I doubt that.

Dean has staff, expenses, ads, etc., in many other states. Doesn't add up that way.

[Meldread]

4. No way!

There is no way even Trippi could have spent 40 Million in both states. There wasn't even that much money! ...but if he did... that would explain the rumor floating around of Dean saying, "How could you have done this to me?"

[AP]

2. Trippi got paid a % of the money he spent on tV

so he had an incentive to spend. The thing is that, although this sounds like a recipe for conflict of interest, he needed to spend there. Dean wasn't really going to do well anywhere else unless he won those states (as we'll soon discover).

I think you can't blame Trippi though. Dean seems like a decent enough guy, but he's just not right for the times. His biography was all wrong for running vs Bush. A lot of the things he did for business in VT are exactly the sort of things that have created so much economic misery for Americans (the sell offs, the deregulation, the regressive taxation, etc.). And the sutff he was perveived as being liberal on would have set him up to be slaughtered. Trippi couldn't do anything about that, and perhaps raising 40 million was the best thing you could do with Dean.

[lastknowngood]

5. Dean just hired Trippe's advertising agency

if he stayed it would be a conflict of interest.