Welcome to the companion website for Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope. Assembled by Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter,  the book is made up largely of stories by people involved in the internet aspects of Howard Dean's campaign for President from 2002 to early 2004. Together, the essays make up a unique political retrospective, and provide a rich window into the passion, insights, surprises, and complexities of the Dean campaign's use of the internet, which changed the world's perceptions of what was possible in U.S. politics. Scholarly commentary by Manuel Castells and others round out the picture.

“Most people even to this day don’t fully understand what we learned about the Internet. . . . It was unbelievable—all of this stuff was going on inside the context of a presidential campaign. We were facilitating this incredible community that was developing, we were not just building a big list. There was a huge virtual presence, which was not just generated by us, but generated by the community, and then they’d show up in person whenever I went somewhere. The grassroots and the Netroots are really one and the same. . . . The Internet is about community building and the fund-raising has to be secondary.”

—from the interview with Howard Dean

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“Written with the passion, enthusiasm, and honesty that characterized Howard Dean’s historic grassroots presidential campaign, Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope shows how the Internet can transcend cynicism, build communities, and engage ordinary people in a way that is already rejuvenating our democracy.”

—Matthew R. Kerbel, editor, Get This Party Started: How Progressives Can Fight Back and Win

“The way we do politics changed in 2004. The Dean Campaign gave new meaning to grassroots organizing, revitalizing democracy – and the Democratic Party along with it. A glorious failure, it may yet prove to herald new triumphs. The Internet was at the core of that moment, and this volume captures the flavor and excitement of those heady—and headstrong—days.”

—Toby Miller, author, Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism, and Television in a Neoliberal Age