Raft of the Medusa
I'm trying to keep Atomized from turning into a campaign web log. It is dedicated to all and the smallest particles of meaning on the web, or so the tag line reads.
I've been wondering; though, since the other day when the Dean campaign pushed Joe Trippi out the door Dean Replaces Campaign Leader in Shake Up and brought in Roy Neel, whether this Neel person is someone my sister might know. He was formerly chief executive of the U.S. Telecom Association. My sister is an antitrust lawyer who currently works for a large federal commission that deals with tele-communication. For years she was a partner with AT&T's outside counsel, Sidley and Austin, and for a year Deputy White House Council for telecommunications. She knows many of the telecommunications lawyer/lobbyist types in dc. This guy Neel seems to have been associated with the baby bells so they were probably on opposite sides of that fence. Unfortunetly she is up in Lewiston Maine this weekend at her old college (Bates) where she is on the board of trustees. So I can't ask her til Sunday.
As I think about it; my sister and I lead very different lives.
I've followed links from both Lawrence Lessig and Dave Winer's web logs to posts by Isen and Dan Gillmor's Silicon Valley.com column. Between what is said here and what has been said in the other media, I don't see the reasoning of bringing Neel on board. I often look for reasons to have logic, heart, or craft. I 'll accept any of those - give them their due degree of respect. This just seems to have nothing. I can agree that the Dean campaign had hit a juncture that it was simply not transitioning through, and that it was time for someone like Joe Trippi to move out, so that the campaign could move on. I also agree with Gillmor that selecting Neel just seems like pandering, it seems to cut against the idea of that candidacy being about anything. It's possible that if you notice and attache meaning to details like this you are focusing too much on the process of elections and not their meaning. Its hard to tell how much a campaign technician means to a campaign. To me the Dean campaign is now in the stage of those in a lifeboat when they start drinking seawater.
11:53:20 PM  ;;
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