Burning
at the
Grassroots

Inside the
Dean Machine

The following people have provided interviews and commentary that inform this book.

Dean Nation, from the Grassroots on up

Howard Dean is a physician who served in the Vermont legislature, then was elected as lieutenant governor under both Democratic and Republican governors. When Governor Richard Snelling died in 1991, Dean left the medical practice he shared with his wife, Judith Steinberg, to serve as governor of Vermont for 11 years. His tenure as governor brought fiscal stability, health care, education reform, land conservation, and civil unions to Vermont. In 2001, when George W. Bush seemed invincible in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, Dean chose to run for President. Like another small state governor who had run against George H.W. Bush when he seemed unbeatable, his quest initially appeared to be one for Don Quixote. By the end of 2003, he had convinced the Democratic Party that Bush was beatable, and had been anointed the front-runner himself. Utilizing the Internet, he raised, and then spent, historic amounts of money, as his campaign reflected the mythology of Icarus.

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Nancy Beach and Brian Vawter operate Atlantic Media Services in Portsmouth, NH.  They produced videos and DVDs used at house meetings in NH at no cost to the Dean campaign.  Nancy ran as a delegate for Governor Dean in the First Congressional District in partnership with the author.  Atlantic Media is an award winning full service film and video production company. 

Garrett Bridgens was an area organizer in the New Hampshire Seacoast, for the Dean campaign. A 2003 graduate of the University of Oregon, he came to the campaign as an unpaid volunteer, and was hired to organize the small towns of Newmarket and Newfields.

Eric Davis is an architect who lives in Oak Park, IL, just west of Chicago, with his wife and two sons.  Since moving to Chicago in 1984 (just in time to see the Cubs choke.  Again.) he has been an active volunteer in Aldermanic, Country Board, State Senate, and US Senate races.  He himself ran for State Representative in 1996 - losing handily to the famous "Chicago Machine".  Eric first became involved in the Dean campaign in March, 2003, shortly after seeing Dean's amazing appearance on "Meet the Press", and hosted the first Meetup he attended in April.  He covened and chaired the Illinois for Dean Coordinating Committee (which eventually became the volunteer adjunct/liason with the official State chair), helped organize the "Sleepless Summer" rally in Chicago, was the State chair for the "September to Remember" house parties, became State Meetup Coordinator, was an Iowa Perfect Storm volunteer (Cedar Rapids), hosted his own Dean New Year's Party, was a Dean Delegate in the Illinois primary and nearly maxed out in contributions - the first time he'd ever contributed to a Presidential campaign. Eric is currently instigating Democracy for Illinois, as a web site (.org), a monthly Meetup, a Yahoo group, and (planned for Summer 2004), a cable-access TV show, part of the fledgling "DFX" network produced by Dean volunteers nationwide (well, at this point it's only Iowa and Illinois, but hey, that's a start).

Katie Drapcho is a sophomore at Portsmouth (N.H.) High School whose efforts to organize and Get Out The Vote (GOTV) in Greenland and Portsmouth had an enormous impact. She did poll checking and visibility in Greenland on primary day.

Adam Drapcho is an anthropology student at the University of New Hampshire. He worked at the polls in Greenland on primary day. He is considering running for office in the largest elective body in the world: the New Hampshire State House of Representatives.

Charles Friou was born in Brooklyn, NY on September 11, 1926.  He attended the New York (Brooklyn) public schools, graduated from Bard College with a bachelor's degree in 1946, and Yale University with a Master's in Divinity in 1949.  He also did graduate studies at MIT.  His has experience as a Refugee Camp Administrator, with the American Friends Service Committee, in Gaza 1949-50.  Mr. Friou was ordained a Congregational Minister of the Gospel in 1951, an served Congregational churches in Flushing, NY and Chester, NJ, followed by an urban ministry in the District of Columbia 1956-69, serving a congregation tens blocks east of the US Capitol.  He was significantly involved in the Civil Rights movement as a Pastor and Officer of the Council of Churches of Greater Washington and was supportive of Clergy and Laity Against the War (Vietnam).  He participated in task force and staff positions with the US Office of Economic Opportunity, in both the Boston and Philadelphia headquarters.  He is now retired.

Gwen Graham Logan was the head of the Dean campaign in the South. She was born into a political family. Her father is Florida senator and former presidential candidate Bob Graham, and the late Katherine Graham of the Washington Post was her aunt.

Raul Grijalva has dedicated much of his life to the people of Southern Arizona, and on January 7, 2003, was sworn in as the first Congressman for the newly created 7th Congressional District.  He was born in Tucson, AZ in 1948.  Raul brings to Washington his life experiences as well as his experience in serving the people of his community.  Raul served on the Tucson Unified District Governing Board and came to be known for his advocacy of teacher and employee rights, civil rights, and public education.  He received many awards for his service.  The most significant honor was the naming of an elementary school in his name in 1988.  During his tenure as a member of the Pima Country Board of Supervisors, Raul set a tone on many community issues, such as health care, children and families, the environment, and working families.  Raul serves on the Committee on Education and Welfare, with seats on the Education Reform Subcommittee and the Employer Employee Relations Subcommittee, and the Committee on Resources, with seats on the National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands Subcommittee and the Water and Power Subcommittee.  In addition, Raul is the chair of the House Democratic Environmental Task Force.

Steve Grossman served as national chair of the Dean campaign. He served as co-chair for John Kerry's 1996 Senate reelection campaign, and was chair of both the Massachusetts Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee, and has run for governor of Massachusetts.

Andrew Hanauer was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where he attended public schools K-12.  He will graduate from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH in June 2004.  Politics run in Andrew's family; his father is one of the pioneers of the anti-tobacco movement, and his uncle has spent his life fighting for Palestinian rights.  As a Junior at Dartmouth, Andrew spent his leave term working on Jeanne Shaheen's Senate Campaign in New Hampshire.  He decided to join the Dean campaign in July 2003, and began interning part-time in the Upper Valley during the fall of that year.  He joined the campaign's press office full-time in Manchester over winter break, planning on returning to school in January.  Instead, he continued essentially full-time through the primary on January 27, going to class 2 days a week and working in Manchester 5 days a week.  He flew to Wisconsin in February to help the campaign there in its final week. 

Hillary Hazan worked as the Director of Women’s Constituent Outreach for Dean for America.  Hillary continues to keep her roots in the grassroots where, as a nonprofit program consultant, she puts her energy toward the betterment of women, youth, and children.  Through program development, she has spent much of her working career supporting individuals in high risk situations. In addition, as Adjunct Faculty at the University of Vermont, Hillary has taught Race and Culture seminars that introduce undergraduate students to the history of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and anti-Semitism in America.  Hillary earned her master’s degree in Educational Studies and focused her work on building pluralistic dialogue and multicultural sensitivity through the American citizenry.

Richard Hoefer is a media consultant in San Francisco. He specializes in strategic media analysis, PC-TV video convergence, communication design, and influence messaging. He created deanport.com. He also created Cut, Cropped & Out of Context, which was a finalist for a Golden Dot award for best breakout or impact Internet moment, at the Politics Online conference held in March 2004 at the Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet.

Wendy Howell is a veteran political operative whose work for the Dean campaign belies her youth.  A resident of Vermont who grew up in New York, she was in charge of the LGBT outreach in New Hampshire before she was sent in to clean up someone else's mess in Exeter and Greenland.

Paul Johnson is a  48-year-old small business owner in Nashua, with a five person Internet applications service provider/software firm.  His proudest moment was when his son, who had no interest in politics through high school, came home from college for Christmas break, cast an absentee ballot for Dean, and then convinced some of his friends to do the same.  A few weeks Paul's son forwarded an e-mail to Paul from Moveon.org about an issue he cared about.

Dorothy Keville was the head of the Massachusetts for Dean organization. A former lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, she first met Dean when he was the governor of Vermont, and the firm she represented was marketing the first HIV/AIDS drugs.

Rick Klau is an attorney and author who is one of the most distinctive and articulate voices of the DeanforAmerica weblog. Klau helped head the Dean effort in Illinois, and traveled to Vermont for a week at Dean headquarters.

Jake Lambert is a Dean campaign volunteer, a student at Boston University, and was active in Mass for Dean in Boston, MA.  He is also known as the "Duke of URL".

Nicco Mele was the webmaster for Dean for America. He was the first webmaster for Common Cause. Mele produced streaming webcasts from the 2000 presidential election cycle. In December 2003, he was named one of the “best and the brightest” by Esquire magazine.

Howard Frank Mosher, like Howard Dean, grew up in New York State and moved to Vermont as an adult.  His works of both fiction and non-fiction provide portraiture of Vermonters that is unequaled.  Two of his six novels have been turned into movies.  A Stranger in the Kingdom  starred Dean supporter Martin Sheen, and Where the Rivers Flow North starred Rip Torn.  A resident of Irasburg, Vermont, he gains grudging acceptance from true Vermonters with each passing decade, despite being a flatlander.

Ray Proulx is a retired superintendent of schools in Vermont. He first observed Dean in the legislature, and then lobbied him on issues concerning education and business in Vermont.

Kristen Rainey-Cooper is the librarian in Madbury, New Hampshire. She worked, along with her husband, as a volunteer in the Dean campaign in Strafford County. On primary day, she was serving as a poll checker as part of the Dean GOTV effort, when she had the list of Dean supporters taken from her under false pretenses, by a stranger claiming to be from the Dean campaign.

Michael Silberman worked as the National Meetup Director for Governor Howard Dean's presidential campaign and managed grassroots field organizing and leadership development programs for Dean's activist base.  Leading a team of four others, he oversaw the successful growth of Dean's monthly "meetup" program, national grassroots actions, and the creation of online field organizing tools and resources.  He also implemented a multi-faceted communication strategy that kept over 2,000 grassroots leaders engaged and directly connected to the national headquaters.  As a field organizer, Michael co-lead campus GOTV operations in the Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsisn caucus and primaries, organizing a series of grassroots organizing summits across the country.  Prior to joining the Dean campaign, Michael gained valuable organizing and political experience at the Union of Concerned Scientists  (UCS) and in the Clinton White House at the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ).  Silberman is an alumnus of  Middlebury College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in political science and environmental studies. 

Malcolm Saldanha was a volunteer in the New Hampshire Dean campaign. He did LGBT outreach, as well as the all-purpose work of all Dean volunteers, first in Manchester, then in Claremont, New Hampshire.

E. William Stetson III, a film producer and environmental consultant, served as an advisor for the HBO movie "Earth and the American Dream", and co-produced "Citizen Suits", a PSA starring Alec Baldwin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.   He co-executive produced Nora Jacobson's award winning, independent feature film "My Mother's Early Lovers", which follows the true story of a New England family for half a century.  Bill also co-produced the recent AIDS documentary, "A Closer Walk", directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Billheimer, and narrated by Glenn Close and Will Smith.  The film was recently featured on OPRAH.  For over twenty years, Mr. Stetson has co-produced Dartmouth College Radio's "Environmental Insight", the nation's longest running, radio talk show on the subject of the environment.  For nearly 15 years, Bill has advised Governor Howard Dean on environmental issues, and he served as an advisor and executive committee member in his bid for the White House.  He has served as a national advisor to three other presidential campaigns, and served on the National Political Committee of  the Sierra Club.  Bill has volunteered in many New England political races over the past 30 years- all were exhilirating, some even successful.  For eight years, Bill served as CEO of Fairhill Oil Ltd. in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  He transformed the company from a floundering oil concern to a successful natural gas exploration firm, and an example of environmental sensitivity in the extractive energy field.  In 2001, he co-founded the energy and environmental think tank, Foundation For Our Future, based at Shelburne Farms (Shelburne, VT), becoming its first chairman.  Bill Stetson's board service includes that of River Watch Network, which he co-founded in Vermont and helped to merge with River Network, the Washington, DC and Portland, OR based rivers advocay organizaiton.  He is currently president of the Boatwright Foundation, and serves as a trustee of the Smith Richardson Foundation.  In 1997, Bill helped found the Vermont Film Commission, and he served as its first president.  The Film Commission, dedicated to encouraging film and television production in Vermont, also initiated the Vermont Public Television series, Reel Independents and developed the Vermont Filmmakers Fund, to aid independent filmmakers.  In 2001, Mr. Stetson was appointed to the prestigious board of the Center for the Environment at Harvard Univerisity, where he received a bachelor's degree and subsequently studied at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Aaron Strauss is an MIT graduate student in political science. He worked in the Dean campaign and designed the vaunted voter database.

Zephyr Teachout was director of Online Organizing for the Dean campaign. She is a Vermont native, and a former lawyer, who auctioned her belongings to work on the Dean campaign.

William Trezevant was deputy director of Washington State Dean for America. He handled day to day management in the state, which produced the highest percentage of Dean voters outside of Vermont. Trezvant has over 15 years experience running and managing local and regional campaigns. He has served as deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.

Joe Trippi served as campaign manager of Dean for America. He worked in campaigns for Mondale, Hart, Gephardt, and Ted Kennedy. He is recognized as a guiding force behind the historic success of the Dean Internet effort. He was a partner of the media firm Trippi, McMahon and Squier.

Peter Welch is a Vermont lawyer and state legislator who has advised Howard Dean for many years. In Dean¹s debate preparations, Welch played the role of Joseph Lieberman.

Meet the Press

Gordon Corera is the US analyst and world affairs editor for the British Broadcasting Corporation. He followed the Democratic primary campaigns in 2004.

Jon Finer is a Boston-based reporter for the Washington Post. Finer grew up in Vermont when Dean was governor, and then ended up covering him on the 2004 campaign trail.

Melinda Gipson is Electronic Media Director of the Newspaper Association of America. She covered the White House and Capital Hill as an award-winning journalist and founded the newsletter Multimedia Daily.

Ellen Goodman is a nationally syndicated, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. Goodman did the first interview in the national media with Judith Steinberg Dean. The best selling author's latest book, Paper Trail, is available on Amazon.com. She has also written I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women¹s Lives. Her insight and common sense commentary on American culture and politics is seen in major newspapers across the country.

David Halberstam is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian. His book, The Powers That Be, defined the relationship between the Presidency and what is now called the traditional media. Vanity Fair called Halberstam “The Moses of American journalism” for his style and epic treatment of events. Vanity Fair said Halberstam “isn’t afraid to draw straightforward morals.;#148;

Ted Koppel is the anchor of the ABC program Nightline. He moderated the debate at UNH, and was criticized for his role in that debate. Koppel has won every major broadcasting award, including 37 Emmy Awards, six George Foster Peabody Awards, 10 duPont-Columbia Awards, nine Overseas Press Club Awards, two George Polk Awards and two Sigma Delta Chi Awards, the highest honor bestowed for public service by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Kit Seelye is a political reporter for The New York Times. She covered the Gore campaign in 2000, and was credited with reporting that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, and that he and his wife had been the models for the main characters in Love Story. As a prominent writer for the “paper of record”, she was subject to the intense media criticism that was common to some provinces of Dean Nation.

Walter Shapiro is a political columnist for USA Today. In 30 years covering politics, he has worked for Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and Washington Monthly. His book One Car Caravan: On the Road with the 2004 Democrats before America Tunes In (New York, Public Affairs, 2003) describes his interactions with the candidates and his observations of the campaign trail in 2002 and 2003.

Scott Spradling is the political reporter for WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire. Spradling currently anchors WMUR News 9 at 5:00, and covers New Hampshire politics throughout the year. Scott holds the distinction of being the first TV reporter to interview President Bush in the Oval Office after he was inaugurated in 2001. His responsibilities stretched from the State House hallways to the campaign trail and all the way through election night. He worked with Ted Koppel to moderate the primary debate at the University of New Hampshire

George Stephanopoulos is a political commentator for ABC. Stephanopoulos was widely praised for his role as moderator of the first Democratic Presidential Debate in Columbia, S.C., on May 3. Stephanopoulos has also conducted several interviews with presidential candidates including Sen. Bob Graham, Sen. John Kerry, and Gov. Howard Dean. Stephanopoulos is the author of All Too Human, a No. 1 New York Times best seller on President Clinton's first term and the 1992 and 1996 Clinton/Gore campaigns. Prior to joining ABCNEWS, Stephanopoulos served in the Clinton administration as the senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy. He was a key strategist in both Clinton presidential campaigns and was involved in the development of virtually all major policy initiatives during Clinton's first term in office. During the 1992 presidential election, Stephanopoulos served on the Clinton/Gore campaign as the deputy campaign manager and director of communications. He oversaw polling, policy, scheduling, press relations and media operations. Before joining Clinton's campaign, Stephanopoulos was executive floor manager to House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt.

Anson Tebbetts has covered Howard Dean since Dean was in the Vermont legislature. Tebbetts is an award-winning political reporter for WCAX-TV, the leading news station in Vermont. Tebbetts is a Vermont native, whose journalistic career has been spent in the Green Mountain State.

Adrian Walker is a political columnist for the Boston Globe. He has observed John Kerry for many years, and is an astute commentator on urban politics.

Jodi Wilgoren covered the Dean campaign for The New York Times. It was her first national presidential campaign as a reporter. Her front page article raised the issue of the absence of Judith Steinberg from the campaign trail. Because of her coverage, she was the subject of “The Wilgoren Watch” by Dean supporters monitoring media coverage.

Experts in a Soft Science

Stephen Ansolobahere is a Professor of Political Science at MIT. Professor Ansolabehere studies elections, democracy, and the mass media. He is coauthor (with Shanto Iyengar) of The Media Game (Macmillan, 1993) and of Going Negative: How Political Advertising Alienates and Polarizes the American Electorate (The Free Press, 1996). His articles have appeared in The American Political Science Review, The British Journal of Politics, The Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, The Quill, and Chance. His current research projects include campaign finance, congressional elections, and party politics.

David Axelrod is one of the pre-eminent political media consultants in the United States, having scored major victories at the local, state and national levels. Axelrod's work has drawn favorable notice in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post and AdWeek. He's been honored with seventeen coveted "Pollie Awards" for political advertising from the American Association of Political Consultants. Axelrod established his firm in 1985, after managing Paul Simon's upset victory over incumbent U.S. Senator Charles Percy in Illinois. Since then, he's produced the media and strategy for more than 100campaigns across the nation, including Simon's 1988 bid for the U.S. Presidency. Axelrod also has produced the media for many members of the U.S.Congress, including Carol Moseley-Braun's historic election to the Senate and Patrick Kennedy's 1994 election to the House. Axelrod was a senior consultant to the Democratic National Committee, and was a senior message adviser to the 1992 Clinton Inaugural Committee. He also has advised major corporations onpublic strategies. In his recent book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, Republican consultant Ed Rollins listed Axelrod under the category of "Guys I Never Want to See Lobbing Grenades at MeAgain." Axelrod is currently an Adjunct Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University and has been a guest lecturer on political media at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and Southern Illinois University. He's been a frequent guest on national TV shows, including CNN's "Crossfire," and is a regular political commentator on Chicago's public television station. He is currently working on the Senate campaign of Obama Barack, who, if elected, would become the third African-American in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

Bill Bicket is the director of Venue partnerships for Meetup.com. MeetUp.com and the Dean campaign grew symbiotically during 2003, as over 180,000 people eventually signed up for Dean MeetUps, meeting in nearly one thousand locations, on the first Wednesday of each month.

David Brady is a senior fellow and associate director for research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is also the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Ethics in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences at the university. His current research focuses on the political history of the U.S. Congress, the history of U.S. election results, and public policy processes in general. His recent publications include, with John Cogan, "Out of Step, Out of Office," American Political Science Review, March 2001; with John Cogan and Morris Fiorina, and Revolving Gridlock: Politics and Policy from Carter to Clinton (Westview Press, 1999); with John Cogan and Doug Rivers. In 1992 he received the Dinkelspiel Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from Stanford University, and in 1993 he received the Phi Beta Kappa Award for best teacher at Stanford University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Charles Buchwalter is vice president of client analytics for Nielsen/NetRatings. He is an expert in online advertising and the politics of the Internet.

Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor at MIT. Professor Chomsky has received honorary degrees from University of London, University of Chicago, Loyola University of Chicago, Swarthmore College, Delhi University, Bard College, University of Massachusetts, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Amherst College, Cambridge University, University of Buenos Aires, McGill University, Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Tarragona, Columbia University, University of Connecticut, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, University of Western Ontario, University of Toronto, Harvard University, University of Calcutta, and Universidad Nacional De Colombia. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Science. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. His works include: American Power and the New Mandarins; At War with Asia; For Reasons of State; Peace in the Middle East?; The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. I and II (with E.S. Herman); Rules and Representations; Lectures on Government and Binding; Towards a New Cold War; Radical Priorities; Fateful Triangle; Turning the Tide; Pirates and Emperors; On Power and Ideology; The Culture of Terrorism; Manufacturing Consent (with E.S. Herman); Necessary Illusions; Deterring Democracy; Year 501; Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War and US Political Culture; Letters from Lexington; World Orders, Old and New; The Minimalist Program; Powers and Prospects; The Common Good; Profit Over People; The New Military Humanism; Rogue States; A New Generation Draws the Line; 9-11; and Understanding Power.

Carol Darr is the director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet at George Washington University in Washington, DC (http://www.ipdi.org). She was a campaign finance lawyer and worked in the Dukakis campaign in 1988. Darr served in the Clinton-Gore administration, as well as serving as counsel to the Carter campaign in 1980, and as general counsel to the Democratic National Committee in 1992.

Rick Farmer is a Fellow of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. He has been a local and state party official, managed a successful congressional campaign, and is an expert in Internet campaigning, campaign financing and advertising.

Tim Fedderson is Wendell Hobbs Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at Northwestern University. He is a Professor in the department of Political Science and the Kellogg School of Management.

Richard N. Goodwin Born in Boston on December 7, 1931,  graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University in 1953. He went on to study law at Harvard University, graduated summa cum laude in 1958 and joined the Massachusetts State bar the same year. After clerking for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1958, Goodwin came to Senator John F. Kennedy's attention in 1959 while working as special counsel to the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Goodwin joined Kennedy's speech writing staff in 1959, and after Kennedy's successful presidential bid, served as assistant special counsel to the President in 1961. Goodwin was also a member of Kennedy's Task Force on Latin American Affairs and in 1961, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, a position he held until 1963. As one of Kennedy's specialists in Latin-American affairs, Goodwin helped develop the Alliance for Progress, an economic development program for Latin America. From 1963 to 1964, Goodwin served as secretary-general of the International Peace Corps and in 1964 became special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. Goodwin left government service in 1965, though returned briefly in 1968 to write speeches for presidential candidates Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and Edmund Muskie. After leaving government, Goodwin served as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut from 1965 to 1967 and as a visiting professor of public affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968. Along with acting as a contributor to Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, Goodwin has published numerous books, articles and plays. Goodwin is married to Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (Simon and Schuster, 1986).

John Hlinko was co-founder fo "Draft Wesley Clark.com", a web-centered movement that generated nearly $2 million in pledges for a Clark candidacy, engaged tens of thousands of volunteers, earned massive coverage in national and international print, television, and online media, and prompted General Wesley Clark to run for President.  As a youngster, John Hlinko never dreamed he'd grow up to be the stand-in for Riverdance star Michael Flatley.  And, indeed, it never happened.  But Hlinko has been an investment banker, campaign manager, published economist, dotcom marketing director, professional comedy writer, and "Buzz Tsar" for a range of grassroots/guerilla campaigns.

Jesse Jackson ran for President in 1984 and 1988. Reverend Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition changed Democratic Party politics and opened the door for the candidacies of Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton, as well as illuminating the way for other insurgent candidates, including Howard Dean. Although Jackson did not endorse any of the candidates for the Democratic nomination, his son, Jesse Jackson, Jr. endorsed Howard Dean.

Doris Kearns first came to the attention of President Lyndon Johnson when she co-wrote a very critical article on Johnson for the New Republic magazine. Several months later, when they met in person at the White House, Johnson asked her to work with him in the White House. He soon asked her to help write his memoirs. During and after Johnson's Presidency, Kearns visited Johnson many times, and, three years after his death, published her first book, Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream. She drew on the friendship and conversations with Johnson, supplemented by careful research and critical analysis, to present a picture of his accomplishments, failures and motivations. She married Richard Goodwin in 1975. Her husband, an advisor to John and Robert Kennedy as well as a writer, helped her to gain access to people and papers for her story on the Kennedy family, begun in 1977 and finished ten years later. This book, too, was acclaimed critically, and was made into a television movie. In 1995 Doris Kearns Goodwin was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, No Ordinary Time. She then turned to writing a memoir of her own, about growing up as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, Wait Till Next Year. She is a regular political commentator for television and radio.
 

Ed Keller is the CEO of Roper ASW. A highly acclaimed author, he is recognized as an authority on consumer trends. His book, The Influentials, profiles the 10% of Americans who profoundly influence the decisions of the other 90%.

Kathleen Kendall is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. She traveled in New Hampshire during the 2004 campaign to analyze the communications skills of the various candidates. Kendall, an expert in presidential primaries, has written Communication in the Presidential Primaries: Candidates and the Media, 1912-2000.

Leslie Kerman is a media contract lawyer. She negotiated the media contract for the 2004 Wesley Clark campaign. Campaign consultants have previously made their fees by acting as the agents who buy the television time for the campaigns, usually at 15 per cent of the total fee paid. Clark and his campaign chief Eli Segal (who helped run Clinton's 1992 campaign) changed all that, instead offering Clark's ad maker Joe Slade White a fee of $75,000 a month. Kerman reckons it saved the campaign over $1m. James Carville says he would have never accept such a deal. "I'll just tell 'em that the Clark campaign shows you get what you pay for."

John Mercurio is a veteran political reporter at CNN.  He serves as Political Editor, and is based in Washington.  His writing appears regularly on CNN.com.

Dwight L. Morris has served as President of the Campaign Study Group, Editor For Special Investigations at the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, Assistant Managing Editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Vice President of Telecommunications and Media Research at Opinion Research Corporation, Vice President of Telecommunications Research at Louis Harris & Associates, and Special Projects Director at The New York Times.

Phil Noble is the founder of Politics Online, the premier international company providing fundraising and Internet tools for politics. In 1997, he was recognized as the International Political Consultant of the Year. His politics and public affairs consulting firm have offices in South Carolina, Washington and Stockholm.

Samuel L. Popkin has published in unusually diverse areas.  His most recent book is The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns.  Earlier he co-authored Issues and Strategies: The Computer Simulation of Presidential Campaigns.  He co-edited Chief of Staff: Twenty-Five Years of Managing the Presidency.  He is equally well known for his work on peasant society, with particular reference to East and Southeast Asisa, including The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam.  Popkin has also been a consulting analyst in presidential campaigns, serving as consultant to the Clinton campaign on polling and strategy, to the CBS News election units from 1983 to 1990 on survey design and analysis, and more recently to the Gore campaign.  He has also served as a consultant to political parties in Canada and Europe and to the Departments of State and Defense.  His current research focuses on presidential campaigns and the relationship of public opinion to foreign policy.

Dante Scala is a leading Scholar of the New Hampshire primary. His book, Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics (New York, Palgrave MacMillen, 2003), tells the history of the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary. He is an Associate Professor of politics and a Fellow at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, where primary debates are held every four years.

Susan Silbey is a professor of sociology and anthropology at MIT (insert link ). In 1998, she published The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life, describing the ways in which Americans imagine, use, and construct the rule of law. Professor Silbey is Past President of the Law & Society Association, and a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Alan Skorski is a political media consultant at Interactive Political Media. The primarily Republican clientele of his firm may explain their Washington address- 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Andrew Smith is the Director of the UNH Survey Center. The UNH Survey Center is one of the most technically advanced polling facilities in the Northeast. Private companies, media organizations, government agencies, and non-profit groups utilize their services. A special focus of the Survey Center is on developing innovative uses for e-mail and the Internet in social surveys.

Kathy Sullivan is the Chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. An attorney in Manchester, she has observed Democratic presidential candidates in New Hampshire over many campaigns.

Steven C. Weiss is communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. The Center conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues for the news media, academics, activists, and the public at large. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more responsive government.

Christine Williams is a professor of government at Bentley College. She has worked in conjunction with MeetUp.com to survey the role of MeetUps in the 2004 election.

J.Mark Wrighton is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire. He co-taught a course on the Presidential primaries in 2003.

John Zaller specializes in public opinion and the mass media. His principal publications are "Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge, 1992), and "Politics As Usual: Ross Perot and the Mass Media" (Chicago, 1997). He has written numerous articles and has co-authored American Ethos: Public Attitude Toward Capitalism and Democracy with Herbert McClosky (Harvard, 1984).