Rich Trippi.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills

When you read about Joe Trippi having worked for Howard Dean without salary, I hope you remembered the point I made in this column during the 2000 campaign: that most political consultants get their money not from salary but from commissions on the advertising that runs for their candidates. Trippi was depicted as a saint by the television pundits--I can still see the deeply respectful look on the face of Chris Matthews, who interviewed him after his departure from the Dean campaign.

True, Trippi charged a lower percentage for his commissions than many consultants. Still, his company had collected $700,000 in commissions on television advertising by the end of January and thereafter had at least $400,000 owed to it, all of which were expenditures largely determined by Trippi as campaign manager. Because of his understandable devotion to this medium for reaching the voters, he had spent almost all of what once amounted to the largest treasury of any...