While not the most shocking of news, obviously the Dean Campaign needs a little bit of shaking up if it’s going to continue to be a factor in this race.
The bad news about this, is that, like what happened when Kerry fired his own campaign manager last month, people are going to point to this as evidence that Dean has lost his way, and should drop out to save face.
The good news for Dean is that Kerry fired his previous campaign manager, and now he’s the front-runner.
Joe Trippi was obviously a huge factor in bringing Dean to early front runner status last year, but he’s always seemed a little bit uncomfortable with his own success -kinda of like a not-ready-for-prime-time player. Some Dean staff have expressed dissatisfaction about his personnel organization skills, and, most obvious to me, his public relations approach to reporters has been shaky at best since the downward spiral began.
The only problem is that it might be too late for Dean to get the ball rolling again. The Kerry explosion is certainly not explicable to me, and apparently not to many other pundits, but as I think New Hampshire has proven beyond a doubt -it’s there, and it’s real.