While many students spent winter break sleeping until noon and spending the remainder of the day eating cereal and playing video games, for John Wesley ’06 and Adam Hodge ’04, it meant working diligently on the campaigns of democratic presidential candidates Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt, respectively.
Wesley, who hails from Vermont, went with his family to Iowa for the holidays and then stayed on to work as a volunteer for the Dean campaign. Iowa holds the nation’s first caucus, and for this reason, it traditionally serves to predict the level of support for each candidate, often influencing voters in other states.
For Wesley, working on the campaign entailed making numerous phone calls and canvassing, which is going from door to door to gauge the level of support for a candidate, in his case Dean. While canvassing, Wesley also answered questions from Iowa residents about Dean or questions pertaining to the caucus in general.
“We mostly wanted to make sure people were informed about the caucus and the election,” said Wesley. “We want people to get back involved in the democratic process.”
Though Wesley said that many people were receptive to his phone calls and visits, the nature of those he spoke to sometimes made it difficult to get straight answers.
“Iowans are very polite, but reserved,” Wesley said. “Many were hesitant to give away where they were leaning. It was frustrating.”
An important part of the Dean campaign, Wesley says, was holding “meet-ups,” where neighbors got together periodically to discuss issues and the campaign. Wesley said his mother became involved in holding these gatherings at their house.
Wesley says his mother is more than your typical loyal Dean supporter. Wesley’s mother, Julie Peterson, served as chief-of-staff while Dean was in office as governor of Vermont. His mother’s professional relationship with Dean has given Wesley an advantage to help him educate others about the Dean campaign. Since Wesley has met and talked personally with Dean, he can better provide people with answers to more personal questions.
“People ask a lot about Howard’s wife, who is a practicing doctor and hasn’t been with him on the campaign” Wesley said. “People want personal information.”
Returning from Iowa, Wesley acknowledged the importance of working on a candidate’s campaign as part of the democratic process.
“People can complain all they want,” he said. “But to see change, they need to get involved.”
While Wesley was in Iowa, Hodge volunteered for Richard Gephardt’s campaign in New Hampshire for the nation’s second primary. As the director of phone bank operations for the New Hampshire campaign, Hodge’s main job was to make phone calls. However, he also participated in other aspects of the campaign, including visibility work, holding up signs at street corners and events.
“Sometimes I was calling supporters, or people we believed to be supporting Mr. Gephardt, but other times, it consisted of just calling people out of the phone book and trying to convince them to let us use their firm [to conduct a phone bank operation], all the while working with limited financial resources,” Hodge said.
For Hodge, working on the campaign reflected his longstanding interest in politics and desire to pursue a career in the field.
“I know that working on campaigns or in government is something I really want to go into after I graduate,” Hodge said.
For other students interested in volunteering with campaigns, Wesley suggests visiting the website of their favorite candidate, where there will often be a link to information on getting involved close to home or in the state where the candidate is campaigning. Getting involved with groups on campus can also be a good start, he said. Hodge says campaigns are always eager to accept any help they can find.
“Campaigns are always extremely excited to get student volunteers. The majority of people who work on campaigns are young, partly because of the incredibly long hours and stressful environments that make having a family or other responsibilities difficult to do while working on a campaign,” he said.
Though Dean did not come out on top in the Iowa caucus, Wesley is unfazed and says he will continue to work on the campaign here on campus.
“[Coming in third] was a shock,” Wesley said. “We had so many people come in from all over the country to volunteer. But the race isn’t over by any means.”
Hodge says he was disappointed at the outcome of the Iowa caucus, after which Gephardt decided to drop out of the race.
“I felt that Gephardt was the person [to beat Bush], but unfortunately he didn’t make it past Iowa,” Hodge said. He has not yet decided whether he will work on the campaign of a different candidate.
“I don’t really feel that any other candidate has the policy proposals that are most aligned with my beliefs, and I don’t think that any of the remaining candidates would make as good a president as Dick Gephardt,” he said. “I may decide to work on a Senate or House campaign, but if the right opportunity presented itself, and I felt good about the campaign, and the direction it was headed, I would consider it.”
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