Grassroots

September 1, 2005
A city council race, even when it involves an impassioned punk rock activist, isn't exactly the stuff of legend. But Campbell, who also served as the campaign manager for Grant Cogswell's bid for a seat on the Seattle City Council, injects humor and tension into his account of the race. Inspired in part by a radical congressman named Marion Zioncheck who had grand ideas but failed spectacularly, Cogswell embarks on a quest to make a difference in local government, building his platform around public transportation issues. The two have a steep learning curve ahead of them, and things like securing campaign donors, recruiting campaign volunteers, dealing with the media and creating campaign propaganda quickly prove to be multiple sources of stress. To compound matters, Campbell wrestles with a houseful of quirky roommates, one of whom is an off-center alcoholic with a new handgun he can't stop playing with. Campbell skillfully captures the tension, frustrations and small victories that serve as emotional mileposts on a campaign, and his running commentary on the city of Seattle and its neighborhoods and citizens give depth to the narrative. The book picks up as it nears its conclusion, although an unwisely placed interlude about Marion Zioncheck hampers the momentum. Campbell's conclusion is tight and highly satisfying, although his closing commentary feels as if it has been cut short. Still, Campbell's ability to capture the enthusiasm as well as the exhaustion involved in a losing municipal campaign is a true feat.

October 17, 2005
A city council race, even when it involves an impassioned punk rock activist, isn't exactly the stuff of legend. But Campbell, who also served as the campaign manager for Grant Cogswell's bid for a seat on the Seattle City Council, injects humor and tension into his account of the race. Inspired in part by a radical congressman named Marion Zioncheck who had grand ideas but failed spectacularly, Cogswell embarks on a quest to make a difference in local government, building his platform around public transportation issues. The two have a steep learning curve ahead of them, and things like securing campaign donors, recruiting campaign volunteers, dealing with the media and creating campaign propaganda quickly prove to be multiple sources of stress. To compound matters, Campbell wrestles with a houseful of quirky roommates, one of whom is an off-center alcoholic with a new handgun he can't stop playing with. Campbell skillfully captures the tension, frustrations and small victories that serve as emotional mileposts on a campaign, and his running commentary on the city of Seattle and its neighborhoods and citizens give depth to the narrative. The book picks up as it nears its conclusion, although an unwisely placed interlude about Marion Zioncheck hampers the momentum. Campbell's conclusion is tight and highly satisfying, although his closing commentary feels as if it has been cut short. Still, Campbell's ability to capture the enthusiasm as well as the exhaustion involved in a losing municipal campaign is a true feat.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2005
Punk rocker, political activist, and part-time poet Grant Cogswell, convinced that the FBI has tapped his phone (he participated in the famous Seattle World Trade Organization protests, you see), enlisted Campbell, recently fired from the alternative weekly " The Stranger," to help him run for a city council seat. But he still remained very definitely at loose ends. Campbell's account of Cogswell's odd-but-true campaign takes its title from the efforts of hard-drinking Depression-era Congressman Marion Zioncheck to expand FDR's New Deal. Zioncheck went mad and killed himself. Cogswell was less dramatic. He called a press conference (which no one attended) to announce that he was running against Richard McIver, "hardly the apex of evil . . . a genial bureaucrat with few ideas and a lot of money and lazy endorsements," says Campbell, though "in our minds, he represented the biggest problem in the American political system." Campbell juxtaposes Zioncheck's and Cogswell's respective political fortunes, thereby transcending a merely ironic tale of grassroots politics to provoke thought about history and its lessons.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)