Netroots Rising: How a Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists is Changing American Politics [Hardcover]

For people involved in the tsunami of online political activism over the past five years (a.k.a. 'The Netroots'), Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox are household names, and reading through their fascinating new book, *Netroots Rising*, reveals exactly why that is. Part social history, part activist manual, part political biography, *Netroots Rising* is--at its core--a first-hand description of the 2006 Virginia Senate race, wherein the Democratic Party candidate Jim Webb out hustled and out smarted the incumbent Republican George Allen, thereby giving delivering a new Democratic majority in the Senate. If ever there was an election tale that could make even the most disengaged reader jump out of their chair and shout, the 2006 Virginia Senate race was it. *Netroots Rising* is a perfect case study for college courses and field trainers alike. But what makes the book so rewarding to read, however, is more than just the tale from the trail. It is the masterful way Feld and Wilcox put their experiences in Virginia in the big-picture context of a shifting reality in American electoral politics. Insiders will relish the chance to read Feld and Wilcox' version of 'L'Affaire Macaca'--wherein George Allen insulted a Webb field staffer with an obscure, but well-documented, racial slur. Newcomers to the netroots will devour the brilliant genealogy of online politics that Feld and Wilcox lay out starting from the presidential bid of Gov. Howard Dean. In the end, Feld and Wilcox walk their reader from an election culture of flipping pancakes and soulless media buys purchased by shadowy consultants, to a brave new world of open-source campaigning, tech-savvy staffers, and engaged citizen journalists who take on the most powerful politicians with little more than a hand-held video camera, a laptop computer, and a fearless turn-of-phrase. Want to know how U.S. politics changed over the past five years, who changed it, and how you can join the fun? Stop listening to the pundit-rubes who litter the 24/7 network and cable shows and pick up a copy of *Netroots Rising*. And while you're at it: buy a few copies for your friends and family, too.

The American political landscape has been irrevocably altered by the rise of progressive bloggers and online activists. In Netroots Rising, Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox have provided a gripping insiders account of this phenomenon. Every campaign manager and Party Chair in America needs to read this book.
Peter Rousselot ,Chair, Arlington County Virginia Democratic Committee

Netroots Rising was super valuable to me in formulating my own theories of online organizing and blogging. I'd say that I really took two things away from Netroots Rising:

1) A better understanding of the historical development of online organizing and the people and campaigns that pioneered the field.

2) The fact that in many of the early successful online campaigns -- drafting Wesley Clark, defeating George Allen -- the web was used as a tool to completely upset the existing power structure.

The reason I found this valuable was because it really put online organizing into context for me and helped crystallize many of my theories on web strategies and tactics. I'd worked at environmental organizations as an online organizer for a couple years at the point I read Netroots Rising, and it occurred to me: Upsetting existing power structures is exactly what we're trying to do. So I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could take the historical examples presented in Netroots Rising and use them to inform my work to protect the environment.

Obviously the types of campaigning I do are far different from the types of campaigning the authors were doing for the likes of Howard Dean and Tim Kaine, so there's not exactly a direct transfer of tactics. But the booked definitely helped shape my thinking in a big way. And when you think about it, giving people the power to directly select the candidate they want (even in the face of opposition from the party establishment) isn't really too different from giving people the power to shape policy or influence decision-makers (even in the face of opposition from the party establishment, special interests, corporate PR firms, etc.). It's all about using our numbers to push back against the influence of money and entrenched power structures.

I was doing a blog training for the grassroots team at a large environmental org and I used many of the examples from Netroots Rising to illustrate how online organizing can be used in concert with offline tactics to make a huge difference. I was told by many folks that it was really quite enlightening for them. Believe it or not, there are still plenty of people -- even at progressive organizations -- who are not entirely sold on the web as a tool for social change, or at least aren't clear how it can be used to effect that change. I made many converts that day, though, thanks to the historical examples and lessons I learned from this super important book.