Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Dave Winer interviewed Trippi (transcript) about the Zephyr affair. In the course of it, Dave says:

Let me just say this. The times, the New York Times, interviewed — go back through the archive, it'd be interesting to see — but I believe the New York Times interviewed people who were on the Dean advisory board — like David Weinberger, who was the tech advisor to the Dean campaign without saying that he was basically, you know, not exactly an employee, but although for all I know maybe they were getting money

For the record: No, I wasn't paid in any form. I was not an employee or sort of an employee. I was a volunteer and proud to be one. But I can see why Dave might be confused: Joe gave me the title Senior Internet Advisor to the campaign. When I got interviewed I always tried to make my role clear as a volunteer consultant who deserves no credit for the brilliance of the campaign; for that I'd point primarily to Joe, Zephyr and Mathew. (And while I'm setting "the record" straight, I was a policy advisor, not a tech advisor.)

One more thing. Trippi says: "On the Sleepless Summer tour, we were letting any blogger that wanted to travel with us go." That wasn't my impression. I got a call from Mathew Gross, Dean's chief blogger, a day before the tour was to begin, saying one blogger had been invited for each of the four legs, and would I like to do the first leg. And how! I was, I believe, the only external blogger on the flight, and my posts were cross-posted on to the official campaign blog. I even said something like the following to Joe on the flight: "Hey, I'm the first blogger to be credentialed to go on a presidential candidate's press plane." So, my impression is that the Sleepless Summer Tour was not open to any blogger that wanted to travel with it. On the other hand, I was just an advisor to the campaign and my memory totally sucks.

Disclosure: The campaign paid for my flight to DC, the first stop on the Sleepless Summer Tour. Here is the disclosure statement I made at the time (Aug. 22, 2003):

[Disclosure: I work for the Dean campaign as Senior Internet Advisor. No money changes hands, but the campaign is paying my airfare. I am partisan.]