A major shake up at the Howard Dean campaign. Dean has named a longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore to head up the campaign. Roy Neel will have the title of chief operating officer.
Dean said he would keep on campaign manager Joe Trippi, but Trippi decided to leave the campaign rather than accept the change. Neel, Gore’s former senatorial chief of staff, served as chief executive of the U.S. Telecom Association in Washington before working on Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. Neel was named to head Gore’s transition team in anticipation of the former vice president winning the White House.
Trippi, who has a quarter-century of experience in Democratic politics, is widely credited with helping Dean assemble the campaign that transformed him from asterisk in the polls to front-runner over the course of months of campaigning.