Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics

Howard Dean's campaign for president changed the way in which campaigns are run today. With an unlikely collection of highly talented and motivated staffers drawn from a variety of backgrounds, the Dean campaign transformed the way in which money was raised and supporters galvanized by using the Internet. Surprisingly, many of the campaign staff members were neither computer whizzes nor practiced political operatives, even though that is how some of them are identified today. This book allows key individuals in the campaign the chance to tell their stories with an eye to documenting the Internet campaign revolution and providing lessons to future campaigns. Howard Dean's inspirational statement of what it took for his campaign to get as far as it did-"mousepads, shoe leather, and hope"-holds great wisdom for anyone campaigning today, especially the 2008 presidential candidates.

Zephyr Teachout is an Associate Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where she is researching law and political corruption. She was the Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean's campaign, the National Director of the Sunlight Foundation, the Executive Director of the Fair Trial Initiative, and a consultant for several new media companies. In 2005-2006 she was a Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She received her law degree summa cum laude from Duke Law School, and holds an M.A. in Political Science from Duke University and a BA in English from Yale. Thomas Streeter is an associate professor at the University of Vermont, where he teaches about and studies the media and the Internet. His Selling the Air (University of Chicago Press 1996) won the McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research. Other publications include The Moment of Wired (Critical Inquiry), and The Romantic Self and the Politics of Internet Commercialization (Cultural Studies). He has taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Southern California, and in 2000 2001 was a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.