[Dean] has volunteers who are doing such things as collecting school supplies, participating in river clean-up efforts, building homes with Habitat for Humanity, collecting native prairie seeds for preservation, chopping firewood for a youth camp, banding birds and collecting supplies for food banks. It gives volunteers something to do besides make pestering phone calls to other Democrats, and it's having a big political payoff.

[...] [I]t reflects the notion that governmental agencies can't solve every problem facing society. Individual volunteer efforts will become even more important in an era of sparse public resources.

[...]In some ways, the Dean Corps is no different from what politicians did generations ago when precinct captains worked neighborhoods to bring food baskets to the needy or help the down-and-out. Political campaigns have moved away from that sort of thing in favor of big fund-raisers to pay for high-intensity television campaigns. The Dean Corps concept is changing that. Given how other politicians always imitate the successful tactic of another, we can expect community service to become a centerpiece of other campaigns in the future, and that's one new trend in politics that would be healthy.