“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
Paradigm Publishers
Amazon.com Barnes&Noble
“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