Word of the Day:

: the grassroots political activists who communicate via the Internet especially by blogs

Inarguably, it was the campaigning by the netroots that helped the senator get elected.

"The netroots has developed a message and approach to politics that doesn't get heard in the world of broadcast TV, where the same pundit retreads dominate." -- Markos Moulitsas, quoted in an article by Tim Fernholz in The American Prospect, April 2010

In July of 1912 McClure's Magazine reported, "From the Roosevelt standpoint, especially, it was a campaign from the 'grass roots up'. The voter was the thing." A little more than 90 years later, the Internet was the thing and the grassroots voters had gone virtual: "June 23rd is going to be the official launch of Gov. Dean's campaign for President -- we want to use this day as a demonstration of the netroots and grassroots across the nation" (The Hotline, June 2003). It was Howard Dean's campaign that tapped into the wellspring of person-to-person electronic communication and brought us "netroots," a word that joins the "net" of "Internet" with the "roots" of "grassroots."