They are b-a-a-a-ck: the campaign materials in your mailbox, the ubiquitous political advertisements on radio and television, the annoying telephone calls from pollsters and partisans. And do not think that when the presidential election is over, they will go away for another four years. As J. Cherie Strachan documents, it is not just the people who would be president who have become addicted to such campaign tactics; it is the people who would be mayor and city council member and sheriff, as well.

High-Tech Grass Roots describes the dramatic increase of what she calls “new-style” campaign tactics at the local level. Such tactics—notably public opinion polling, television and radio ads, and targeted direct mail—require specialized skills and sophisticated technology to use effectively. As a result, candidates hire professional political consultants to deploy them, usually in combination with the still-effective grassroots methods of traditional local campaigning, such as speeches, door-to-door canvassing, and literature drops.

Strachan convincingly offers a threefold proposition. First, local candidates, as well as political reporters and even voters, increasingly see these sophisticated tactics as necessary to a successful election bid. Second, because the tactics cost more than traditional ones—both in and of themselves and because of the need for paid specialists, rather than generally low-skilled volunteers, to implement them—serious money is becoming vital in local elections. And third, despite an increase in the amount of campaign rhetoric available to voters, the trend is inherently dangerous to democracy: Moneyed interests can gain undue influence over local campaigns, and economically disadvantaged candidates or potential candidates are less likely to have a voice at any level in our political system.

Although she emphasizes that there is no single, simple solution to problems raised by the new political reality, she sees a renewed “service” role for political parties in meeting local candidates' need for money and expertise as the most viable approach. Perhaps, though surely both the media and the citizenry also have a vital part to play; the First Amendment protects and supports them as much as it does campaign contributors, as described in the last chapter.

The book is an interesting—and, at only 130 content pages, a quick—read about an important topic. It could make a nice supplemental text in a course about local politics, campaigns, or political communication. Strachan has a very accessible writing style, and her reliance on three complementary methods and data sets—a mail survey of political consultants, telephone interviews with political reporters, and a case study of Albany, NY, mayoral elections—produces a richer depiction of the issue than would any one alone. She organizes and delivers her points nicely, going well beyond merely documenting the trend in order to cogently explore the broader issues of why local candidates are changing tactics and the implications of those changes.

High-Tech Grass Roots does have some drawbacks, however. Although Strachan explains that the vast number of local elections across the country makes it difficult to talk directly with politicians, her reliance on consultants and newspaper reporters forces her to use secondhand information about what candidates are doing and why, shaky ground on which to base her conclusions. For instance, reporters are her sources on everything from the tactics citizens expected mayoral candidates to use (p. 49) to assessment of candidates' social class (p. 74) to an approximation of how much money candidates spent (p. 76) and more. In the absence of more extensive information from candidates and without a local equivalent of the Federal Election Commission, journalists' best guesses take on credence they may not deserve, despite reporters' reputed “predilection for factual accuracy” (p. 127).

Another significant shortcoming is the lack of information about candidates' use of the Internet. Again, Strachan offers an explanation: The novelty of the medium as a campaign tool at the time of her study, apparently (though this is not specified in the methodology) in 1997 and 1998, minimized its impact in local elections. Despite its well-documented use as early as 1996 at the federal level, that is quite possible—but the book has a publication date of 2003. The five-year gap is a lifetime in Internet years. Moreover, the title suggests the use of tactics that are, well, high-tech. It is disconcerting that this category includes advertisements for the 80-year-old mass medium of radio but excludes the Internet, particularly since a major premise is that newer tactics force candidates to hire specialists—such as, presumably, website designers and producers. It would be interesting to consider how computer-based communication technologies, which are likely to play an increasingly crucial campaign role, either exacerbate the problem outlined here or, conversely, accommodate a new kind of grassroots politics. Other researchers have begun to consider this issue from both political science and communications perspectives, and Strachan's local focus could complement that work nicely.

There are other minor flaws. As suggested, the use of “old” and “new” as terms to describe tactics is misleading; the more relevant distinction here seems to be between tactics that require the help of hired professionals (and, not incidentally, reduce or eliminate candidates' direct contact with voters) and those that can be used cheaply and effectively by candidates and volunteer campaign workers. The response rate to the mail survey of political consultants is low at about 30%. The theoretical framework of diffusion of innovations seems vestigial here, appearing from time to time without contributing significantly to the overall work. And by concentrating on the political science literature for her study's context, Strachan overlooks excellent work in this area by scholars in both political and mass communication.

That said, this little book is worth reading for its intriguing look at what local candidates—those closest to the citizenry in our multitiered government system—are doing, why they are doing it, and what it means for the rest of us. Chapter 4, entitled “How Will Encroaching Campaign Sophistication Affect the Health of Democracy?,” is particularly strong, and the final chapter, “Electoral Reform from the Grass Roots,” appropriately incorporates recent campaign finance rulings and reforms in its suggestions. For students, the book can be enlightening. For scholars, it raises provocative questions that can inform a wide range of follow-up studies. For citizens, it serves as both motivation and warning: To withstand the political arms race, the most effective weapons remain information and engagement.