A consultant friend in Virginia Democratic circles is helping me better understand how Ben Tribbett ended up as a moderator in an April gubernatorial debate in Blacksburg.
The key isn’t Tribbett, but the Huffington Post, which is the lead sponsor of the debate at Virginia Tech on April 29. Two sources have indicated to me that Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington will serve as one of the moderators at the event, which I was told by my Dem consultant friend was put together by Tribbett in his capacity at the Washington, D.C.,-based New Media Strategies, where he serves as strategic director.
A campaign manager for one of the gubernatorial candidates told me that having Huffington Post involved with the debate is a coup. “Having the attention of a national political blog on our primary is invaluable,” the campaign manager told me. The inclusion of Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato infamy is “a risk,” “but we weighed the pros and cons, and we decided that the pros outweighed the cons.”
My consultant friend seems to be leaning in the same way. “The question is, Which Ben Tribbett shows up? Is it the Ben from Not Larry Sabato? Or the Ben from New Media Strategies? Is it the Ben who can ask insightful questions about the direction of Virignia politics? Or is he going to ask one of the candidates if he still beats his wife?”
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You ask me, we’re selling our souls to the devil, and for what, to get HuffPost to give us coverage? This is just what Virginia Dems need – national Dems coming in here and telling us how to do our business and the lunatic fringe that is Ben Tribbett mucking things up for us in November.
I so love being a Democrat.
– Story by Chris Graham
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