I've been reading through the collection of stories in "Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics."

The book is a compilation of stories from people that worked or volunteered on Howard Dean's presidential campaign 4 years ago. Larry Biddle , Manuel Castells, Bobby Clark, Howard Dean, Zack Exley, Matthew Gross, Aldon Hynes, Joshua Koenig, Nicco Mele, Amanda Michel, Kelly Nuxoll, Pam Paul, Araba Sey, Michael Silberman & Zephyr Teachout. You probably recognize some of those names. Zephyr and Tom Streeter took the concept of the book and made it happen, and I was able to make a contribution with a chapter.

The chapter I wrote isn't about the work I did on the official campaign, from when I first went out with Markos to Burlington in May of 2003, until the following January when Dean's campaign ended. A time when I was busy inventing how to do online advertising in politics with Micheal Bassik, Henry Copeland & Miles Kurland, helping to coordinate blogger outreach with Mathew Gross, and building and administrating the ForumForAmerica.com website with Markos Moulitsas and Murshed Zaheed. Instead, I wrote about "How a blogger and the the Dean campaign discovered each other", which was partly my story of getting involved with DFA, but only in the context of the greater event that saw the merging of the nascent online movement with the campaign for Howard Dean.

The sections of the chapter I wrote, the birth of MyDD and the online progressive community in 2000-2002, the reason for the appeal toward Howard Dean among his early adopters in the progressive netroots, the first interactions between myself with Howard Dean, how the online collaberative strategy came together in late 2002 with Joe Trippi, and the takeoff of Dean's campaign,  in early 2003, alongside the online efforts-- that's the story I wrote.

I wound up, as I researched and wrote this chapter, delving into the internet.org archives of MyDD and Dean Nation, as I put together the story of how the online efforts of 2002 for Howard Dean began. It was something that I'd written a draft of before (and posted somewhere on MyDD), and re-fleshing out those moments was like finding an old childhood photo album, and flipping back into the the early years.

Even though the campaign intensity is four years past, that sense of possibility, of doing something not because you have the position and expectations, but merely for wanting to do it, is something precious. I have been on a few campaigns since Dean's, and realize that the experiences of being on a campaign, the highs and lows, the intensity and suspense, the drama and the endings, are all too familiar experiences. There were many first-time experiences that you'll read about in this book, from Dean campaign staffers, that will resemble your experiences if you've worked inside a campaign recently. Like the frustrations before Nicco came on board, of the campaign being able to simply update the website. Data silos, not enough time, plans gone awry, and so on.  

I have battle scars from that campaign, just like I do from every campaign, from trying to ram through innovation and integration despite the demands from those who don't want to change they way they've worked in campaigns for decades. I find those battles to be happening less nowadays, and instead have the opposite demands of wanting even more by campaign staffs. But for the most part, when I think back to the Dean campaign experience, it's been through only my remembrances, and this book broadened that to beyond my own memories, to see it through the eyes of others that went through it too. There's not much time to reflect with others on the campaign working alongside you-- too much work to do. And it's rare that someone from a campaign writes a memoir, so that makes this collection of stories unique and worthy. Enjoy them if you will.