Boots on the Ground: A Grassroots Tale of Neighbors Stepping Up & Into Pete Buttigieg’s Historic Presidential Run

When a gay, Millennial, Rhodes Scholar, veteran Mayor announced he was running for President of the United States with no money or widespread name recognition, a ragtag group of newly-minted volunteers in rural Iowa stepped up to a challenge: to fuel a political cause of bringing civility and truth to the process and deliver on the improbable, a historic caucus win. The candidate: Pete Buttigieg. The volunteers: Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters representative of all corners of the Hawkeye State.Boots on the Ground is the grassroots tale of what campaigning looked like and felt like from the ground as all eyes turned on Iowa for the first Presidential caucus during a particularly contentious season. The lessons we learned from our shared experience can be applied to any cause, large or small. External or internal, really. With fire in our bellies and hope in our hearts, we made the impossible a reality. While pundits and prognosticators opined from on high, the anonymous regular nobodies in the arena rolled up their sleeves and got to work to change the world, bit by bit, neighborhood by neighborhood. This is the story of some of those folks and the strategy used to successfully move a heavy needle towards progress.Author Lisa Fleishman-blue-collar, small town business owner, former Republican, occasional blogger, and no-nonsense grassroots activist-lives in rural Iowa with her husband, daughter, and completely disinterested-in-all-things-political rescue cats.