“Ground Wars” has just been announced the winner of the 2014 Doris Graber Award, given by the American Political Science Association for the best book published on political communication in the last ten years.
This is what Susan Herbst, chair of the award committee, wrote to me.
“Our committee voted for your book unanimously, finding it to be innovative, engaging and of very high quality relative to the terrific pool of nominee books.”
I’m very proud of this. Previous Doris Graber Award winners include some of the political communication scholars I admire the most, and I’m honored to see my work in this company (especially since so many good books have come out in the last years).
The book is based on hundreds of hours spend in campaign offices (like the one below in Stamford), talking to staffers, being on the phone with volunteers, canvassing with part-timers knocking on doors for $10 an hour, talking to voters all over Connecticut and New Jersey for months on end.
As I write in my acknowledgments, “I have learned more from the people involved in campaigns than I can ever hope to teach them, and I thank them all for letting me into their world.”
That’s worth repeating—I’m grateful that people let me in, had the patience and inclination to talk about their work.
For those interested in a taste of the book, the first chapter is available for free here [pdf] on the Princeton University Press website, and the book can be found through Amazon etc.
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