Good to be home. Had fun at the boat parade party, and then had a lot of fun sleeping, and then some more with a nice brunch. Final bit of fun: getting a new monitor so that I can use my desktop.

I’ve got two Dean-related articles here. Adam sends me a profile of Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, a fascinating guy. And there is this wonderful WashPost piece on Dean’s organizing tactics, using Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Coase’s theories as a basis. The author, Everett Ehrlich (a former Clinton staffer whose name I recognize from somewhere), claims that Dean is, in effect, taking over the Democratic party “brand” without caring about any of the party’s core assets. Kinda like C|Net bought out the MP3.com domain name from Vivendi, not caring while VUNet deleted the millions of songs that it used to house. They believe they can rebuild a better system and it is only the brand they need. Dean, of course, is starting from the other end — he has created his own party, in effect, by using the power of the internet to make a virtual community. In effect, he is a third party candidate taking over the Democratic party’s brand while doing his own fundraising, information dissemination, and campaign coordination. Smart, smart man. I absolutely love watching the Dean phenomenom play out.