If Progressives are ready to move beyond the "Age of W" into a winning era, they can start with Stand Up Straight. This is more than a call to arms. This is a battle plan from one of the best campaign minds in America. Bob Creamer takes his readers from values to votes with practical tactics and insight gathered over decades of experience. This book is for players...spectators need not apply.

If every activist in America read Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight, we could change our country. This book will help bring on the New Progressive Era. It's that good.

Bob Creamer has been at the center of every major progressive political movement in America for four decades. If anyone in America knows how to run and win issue campaigns it is Bob. Stand Up Straight is nothing less than the bible for progressive political activists.

Creamer's book is a one-stop shop for political junkies, from a novice to a know-it-all...While Creamer writes from the progressive Democratic perspective, his chapters on organizing, messaging, demographics and constituency groups comprise a how-to political manual.

Stand Up Straight is a one-stop, nuts-and-bolts manual on how to run a winning campaign -- and, in the process, return America to its progressive roots. Filled with learned-in-the-trenches lessons, Creamer's book is a master's class in electoral politics.

Stand Up Straight is a straight-up shot in the arm for progressives. Robert Creamer has successfully turned decades of campaign and organizing skills into an essential handbook for understanding political power, activism, and progressive values. Creamer rightly argues that progressives should embrace their core principles and fight for the real political center in American politics today -- issues like universal health care and pre-k, energy independence, redeployment from Iraq, and a return to sane and sensible national security policies.

This former Congresswoman from Colorado feels a little silly recommending a book by the husband of one of Congress's greatest progressive current representatives, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky from Chicago! The real political experience of Robert Creamer makes Listen to Your Mother, Stand Up Straight one of the best "how to do it" books around. Progressives are always accused of being policy wonks with no real political experience on how to deliver. Not the case here; you get the policy and but also how to make that policy a reality!

This book is so important because it focuses like a laser on the one element that is essential to progressive victory: courage. Without exception, all of our historic victories have required that people had the courage to act -- and stand up straight. The lessons in Stand Up Straight were learned the hard way by generations of Americans fighting for civil rights, women’s rights and important social change. It’s a must-read for anyone who is passionate about changing America – now.

A stand-up book from a stand-up guy, showing us how to put progress back into "progressive." From broad vision to minute details, Creamer offers an invaluable manual for those who want to reassert our country's historic egalitarian values of fairness, justice, and opportunity for all.

Progress takes more than passion; it requires planning. This book is a blueprint for victory.

This book is one-stop shopping for progressive activists who want to keep their values and win. It combines vision, program, strategy, political context, tactics, organizing and election techniques and is infused with an optimistic spirit. It is 1/2 organizing training manual, 1/2 manifesto, 1/2 values to live by. It is so chock full of insights and good sense as well as personal stories that it is more than one whole. Bob Creamer is a treasure.

A truism: those who can, do; those who can't... teach and write books. So when someone who can, and does, like Bob Creamer, takes the time to stop and write a book, everyone who cares about the art of activism should seize the chance to learn from that rarest of rarities: a teacher who actually knows what he's talking about and who has successfully put into practice what he preaches.

There are lots of people who are smart and sophisticated about political strategy, and there are lots of people who are passionate and committed about progressive causes. There are very few people who combine those qualities as well as Bob Creamer, a fact which readers of his book will quickly come to appreciate.

In Stand Up Straight, Bob Creamer gives citizens an owners manual for Democracy. With a practical eye from his decades of experience, Bob shows how to do the real work of political organizing and win, by promoting deep progressive values. With hundreds of real world examples and step-by-step advice, Stand Up Straight is both inspirational and a serious tool. Thanks, Bob.

Well worth the read because it focuses the mind on an unusual subject for progressives -- winning.

One of the great progressive strategists of our time insightfully explains how to conduct successful issue campaigns and the challenges we face in moving forward on a social justice agenda.

In Stand Up Straight, Bob Creamer brings together the best of both worlds: years of old-school experience combined with a fresh new approach to politics. A must-read for anyone attempting to navigate the ever-changing political environment.

This book lays out a play book for the blocking and tackling of politics: understanding self interest, nuts and bolts execution, and refusing to give the other side any quarter. That kind of winning attitude is exactly how we're reviving the Democratic Party in the State of Virginia. A must-read for state Democratic Party chairs.

Finally, a comprehensive manual for progressive victory. Politics is not just about right and wrong. It's about results, and building a better world for our children.

Bob Creamer's forty years of organizing has made him a master organizer. This book, Stand Up Straight, more than any other I have read, combines values, passion, methodology, nuts and bolts and a will to win. I run an organizing institute that trains hundreds of organizers and thousands of leaders. I will put this book on the must-read list for all those who choose to make organizing their path.

By articulating a strategy which incisively combines passion and pragmatism, Creamer not only shows how progressives can achieve electoral victories but, more crucially, how we can imagine and build a different nation, based on integrity and justice.

This is an important handbook for all of us. Bob Creamer has turned a lifetime of progressive leadership into an interesting and essential treatise for longtime activists, politicians and aspiring politicians, and the growing numbers of concerned young people. This book outlines not only what we need to accomplish to achieve a just society and personal fulfillment, but also shows us in chapter after chapter how, why and with whom progressives will accomplish those goals.

Invigorating, insightful, inspiring and battle-tested. Creamer provides a 'how-to' manual for progressive victory in 2008 as well as a thoughtful guide for turning around America and meeting the challenges of our global future. A must-read for serious progressives, whether they are grassroots activists or candidates for elected office.

In Stand Up Straight, Bob Creamer puts on paper the 'where' we need to go as a nation, and the 'how' we can get there by making 'Democracy' and 'Justice' mean something real in the United States of America.

Robert Creamer has written an indispensable resource for Progressives--organizers, strategists, electoral and issue activists. It's user-friendly and filled with important how-to's, strategy and tactics, insights and wisdom from a long and distinguished career. It combines serious discussion of broad concepts and vision with meticulous attention to campaigning details. Your copy is bound to be dog-eared in no time.

Everyone who wants the inside scoop on how progressives can win on the important issues of our time must read this book. Bob Creamer knows because he is at the center of it all.

Stand Up Straight is different from the recent slew of mostly superficial books by political consultants and observers telling Democrats how to win elections. Long time organizer Bob Creamer fills this exceptionally useful book with in-depth, essential information built on perceptive analysis of human behavior. He includes the nuts and bolts essentials -- who to target, how to plan, how to mobilize. But also he also analyzes the "vision thing" -- what are progressive values and how progressives can and must communicate a vision of a truly democratic society in order to create one.

Both an inspirational and practical guide to show progressives how to organize successfully, and play to win.

Encyclopedic! A tour-de-force! Peppered with stories, case studies, field-tested tactics, and complex concepts simplified, this is a must-read book for all progressive organizers!

Bob Creamer has been doing the Lord's work all his life, organizing people for decades that no one else cared about or fought for to work together to fight for themselves. Now he has poured all that knowledge and passion into a political primer for our times, giving us a strategy for building a progressive political majority that will last.

Bob Creamer offers a must-read blueprint for reclaiming progressive values and power at the grassroots and the ballot box. It perfectly blends his streetwise organizing sense and strategic and tactical lessons -- with his informed optimism for the progressive possibilities of U.S. politics. Read Listen To Your Mother NOW --and let's get to work!

Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment available of how to build political support for progressive policies that would chart a new course. Creamer's book belongs on the bookshelf of those who are, or aspire to be, progressive activists.

Bob Creamer is one of the best in the country at synthesizing message research, earned and paid media, grassroots organizing and other components of a political or issues campaign into one powerful, integrated voice. This book is a how-to manual for everyone who wants to beat the Karl Roves of the world at their own game.

As an organizer and strategist, Bob Creamer has won all kinds of improbable victories for progressive causes. This book is must-reading for his fellow progressives who seek to do the same, and to build a more decent world.

Robert Creamer's book comes along just as the activist "netroots" are firing up a new generation of progressive activists -- and just as average Americans are rejecting the radical conservatives who have weakened our country and undermined the middle class. It lays out a blueprint -- and an optimistic attitude -- for taking our country back. Everyone who cares about America's future should buy this book.

If you care about economic and social justice, read this book. If you want to act in the name of economic and social justice, read this book. Creamer has lived the fight and learned from the fight. There are few with his experience or expertise.

Thank goodness for Bob Creamer's call to courage, to principle, and to faith in our history of progressive action. Represent what you truly believe in, find common ground whenever and wherever you can, use the arrows in your quiver wisely and sparingly, be outraged by, and oppose policies (not people). Whatever happens do NOT compromise what you believe in; you not only won't prevail, you will cease to exist in many important ways. Bob has my admiration, my appreciation, and my "vote".

Bob Creamer has devoted his life to progressive causes. Here he provides a fascinating narrative of how progressives have won in the past and provides a blueprint for future victories.

Bob Creamer has managed to summarize a strategy for progressive politics while presenting an inspiring moral vision for this country. He argues that the future of America can, and must, rest on a society that values diversity over monoculturalism, peace over war, economic justice over greed, and consensus over divisiveness. As eager as many of us in "the values business" are to capitalize on the building momentum for a progressive values message, it will all come to naught without Creamer's insistence on good organizing, solid community-building, smart politics, and sophisticated messaging.

Bob Creamer has inspired and taught our movement for over 30 years. Read this book and act accordingly.

Long one of the nation's most brilliant and creative strategists, Bob Creamer has written a compelling and timely book that is must reading for those who want the progressive movement to achieve sustainable success.

Bob Creamer's message to progressives, to Stand Up Straight, is one that must be heeded by all who are willing to fight for a truly equitable American society. Those of us whose daily work consists of opening doors for the underserved, realigning the priorities of our country's governing bodies, and fostering a long-term vision of prosperity for generations to come, cannot afford to miss this book. Bob's messages of hope and optimism, combined with strategies for how to build campaigns that successfully intersect vision and action, could not be delivered during a more critical time in our country's history.

Bob Creamer's welcome book rightly instructs progressives to say and fight for what they believe. To Hell with the politics of timidity - a long-term progressive majority is within our reach.

Listen to Bob Creamer. One of America's best organizers has written one of the best books on how progressives can stand up, fight back, and win for a change. This book is filled with proven, practical advice about how to out-work, out-organize, and out-argue the other side.

Bob Creamer is a creative and bold visionary who has written a valuable resource guide that progressives can refer to time and again not only to win elections, but to also secure a more just society for us all. With his moral clarity, clear vision and good-old common sense, Creamer's book provides the "shot in the arm" that the progressive movement needs. Guaranteed to turn "whining" progressives into "winning" progressives.

Creamer's book connects the dots from the grassroots to the Democratic Party structure--and through the blogosphere. Listen to Creamer and stand up straight for a progressive victory!

This book is an invaluable toolkit for any campaign local or national -- and a tremendous tool for training. This is a must-have for any progressive organization or effort.

In this book Creamer not only lays out a plan for progressives to win, he also describes a progressive vision for the future that recognizes the interconnection of people all over the globe. That vision requires that the world address the most critical issue of our time: the structural violence visited on billions of people in the developing world by powerlessness and poverty.

When I was in college, this is the book that I always looked for … and never could find. Stand Up Straight is definitive—a guide for serious political organizers. This should be standard material in every classroom!

In Ruth McKenney's famous 1938 play, My Sister Eileen, the breakthrough moment is when Ruth decides to "write what you know." In Stand Up Straight, Bob Creamer has done exactly that. For over thirty years, since we worked together in Chicago, Bob Creamer has stood up straight, and has won. From door to door organizing, to legislative issue victories, to winning political campaigns, Bob Creamer has done it all. This book-- a distillation of a lifetime of incredible work-- contains invaluable advice for progressives, and any one else smart enough to listen.

Bob Creamer has written a book both brilliant in its analysis and inspiring in its vision. It’s a guide for all of us on how to create the kind country and society that many of us have talked about and worked for all our lives. It’s a candidate’s roadmap on how to win and win as a strong progressive....a strategist cogent analysis of what it will take to gain power based principles we can be proud of….a organizer’s guide to success in their campaign next week and for a major policy victory three years away...and a leader’s manual for the principles and vision to inspire everyday citizens to rally to their side. Bob has is brought 40 years of on-the-front-lines experience to produce what will be shortly become the manual that all progressive leaders and activists alike will keep close at hand.

Robert Creamer is a scarce national resource -- a progressive organizer with an astute sense of strategy and tactics. This book is replete with insight, common sense, and vision. Organizers will find it an invaluable resource.

In Stand Up Straight, Robert Creamer gives progressives practical insights, tools, and analysis to work smarter. It will hopefully inspire more people to act and help more people to act effectively.

Creamer's classroom has been the frontlines and trenches of progressive organizing, from the Civil Rights Movement to the battle for children's health care. Here, he shows us how to replace fear with hope, to renew the call to commitment, and to create our society's next historical movement.