Shapiro stresses that these ridiculous moments where future leaders are stuffed into tiny rooms are far more interesting, and certainly more useful than a year of sound bite laden newspaper articles. It is precisely because the people, who see the candidates at this stage, actually get to meet them and shake their hands.

Along the way, Shapiro dispenses nuggets of wisdom on topics from media coverage to the personal lives of the major candidate running for the Democratic nomination. He describes the realties of a modern campaign where "buzz" travels faster than a reporter on the ground can hear about it. At one point he was, "sadly behind the curve" since he was reporting first hand rather than reading the lightening fast political gossip pages from his desk in New York. The implications that being a true arm-chair political writer at a home office thousands of miles away might be just as effective as being ten feet from a candidate are huge.

A run for the presidency still begins by campaigning for small crowds, on rainy days, in places like Portsmouth New Hampshire two years before the election. A year after that, the crowds grow to sometimes 70 people at a time in a cramped living room.

Shapiro ends not with the ramblings of a television talking head, but a true summation of each of the candidates at the time. At least how he, after following them for over a year, thought of them. Dean is "simultaneously beguiling and exasperating". Kerry is the candidate he'd most like to enjoy a beer with. Lieberman has the, "temperament befitting a man who wants to be entrusted with the codes for nuclear weapons." Gephardt reminds Shapiro what he likes about the "never flashy Midwest." And Edwards is far more "compelling in person than he is in theory."

One Car Caravan confirms what is probably most comforting about democratic politics in America. That a run for the White House takes years, and involves countless stops along the way in people's houses and long trips in cars with a single aid. Even more reassuring is that two years before an election there are people who actually want to hear them speak.

Jackson Murphy is a commentator from Vancouver, Canada. He is a senior writer at Enter Stage Right and the editor of "Dispatches" a website that serves up political commentary 24-7.