ON THE FAST food TRACK

They're young, they're idealistic--and their cholesterol levels are rapidly approaching 200.

Six months from now, the youth will still be there but the idealism will be waning and, thanks to McDonald's, the cholesterol will probably still be climbing.

As America swings again into the quadrennial process of choosing a president, they are the hand-shakers, the sign-holders, the press release writers, the coffee makers, the umbrella holders and the faxers. Toiling in obscurity, hundreds of twenty-somethings are already heavily involved in next year's presidential campaigns.

With the first primary just five months away in neighboring New Hampshire on February 20, these young politicos are already hard at work, utilizing, every minute to increase support for their candidate.

For these campaign workers, campaign mode means 15-hour days, the constant companionship of a beeper, greasy Chinese take-out food and CHIPS re-runs at three in the morning.

But as these tireless workers told hundreds of Harvard and area college students last weekend at the Institute of Politics 1996 Presidential Campaign Organizing Conference, the job is worthwhile because they love politics, they want to make a difference in the lives of others and because they hate 9-5, coat and tie, desk jobs.

"I absolutely love this," said Matt Mayberry, 30, assistant to the state director in New Hampshire for the Lamar Alexander for president campaign, as he surveyed the hubbub of the conference below.

"Politics gives young people the opportunity to make tremendous differences. I got involved because I wanted to empower the powerless, and there is no other business but politics where you can do that," Mayberry said.

However, in order for most of the young campaign workers to make a difference and to get ahead in the political world, their candidate must win next year.

The task seems especially daunting to the workers on the Republican side, because not one of the GOP candidates has emerged as a clear favorite in next year's primary.

Yet, still they persist, even in freezing weather in New Hampshire's North Country, where winter temperatures usually do not exceed the state's number of votes in the Electoral College.

In the end, just one day, November 5, will decide if their next move will be to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or back home.

Varied Backgrounds

Campaign workers come from widely different political and educational backgrounds.

Some said they got their start at a early age, one night captivated by a rowdy convention or a rancorous debate which pre-empted their favorite sit-com.

Others, faced with graduation and entry into the "real world," said they joined campaigns directly after college in an effort to delay the inevitable.

Still others, began their political careers by involving themselves with their student government in high school or by becoming politically active at an even earlier age.

"I was raised in a traditional family in West Virginia. My father was a small business owner and my mother was a school teacher," said Dee Stewart, National Youth Director of the Phil Gramm for President campaign. "From my father's business, I learned about the burden of federal regulations."

Stewart, a 1995 graduate of Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., said he and other people his age were attracted to the Republican Party by former President Ronald Reagan and his conservative economic and social policies.

"You saw a lot of young people here tonight," Stewart, 22, said as the night was winding down. "The charisma of Ronald Reagan attracted thousands to the Republican Party and [young people] stayed with the Republican Party because they liked the substance of what he was saying."

Stewart said that before coming to the Gramm campaign he was the North Carolina youth director for the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign and the chair of the state's College Republicans.

Like Mayberry, he said he is interested in the affect politicians can have on the lives of everyday citizens.

"While I am young and flexible, this is how I think I can make a difference," Stewart said. "Politics takes a beating as a profession, but it is the only profession where you can make a difference in the lives of so many people."

A worker on the Pat Buchanan for President Campaign, Sean C. McCabe said his brother's race for state representative at the precocious age of 18, attracted him to campaign life when he was just 14.

McCabe is now office manager and New Hampshire volunteer coordinator for the Pat Buchanan for President campaign.

He said he is well suited to the nature of political life. McCabe, 25, is a graduate of Stonehill College, and worked in 1994 on John R. Lakian's failed attempt against Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56 (D-Mass).

"Campaigns are great work if you are organized. If you are not, don't even bother getting in politics," McCabe said. "If you lose a phone number and do not call someone back, you get them upset and they in turn will tell a friend and now you have ten people angry at you."

McCabe, who described politics as an "addiction," said he was attracted to Buchanan while he was growing up, because he liked the television commentator's enthusiasm and positions on critical issues.

"I have been watching Pat since I was a kid and I loved his excitement, his moral values and his integrity," McCabe said. "Even the people who hate Pat say 'at least he'll tell you the same thing, he doesn't pander.'"

On the Road

With a newly printed diploma-hand, Dan Prats set out three years ago in his car to help out with the struggling Clinton-Gore campaign. Having worked in the Clinton Campaign on the University of New Hampshire campus, Prats traveled up and down the East Coast campaigning for Clinton and Gore because "it was fun and an adventure."

"Ever since I was a kid I have always wanted to make a difference," Prats, 26, said. "Due process is most important, preservation of the system, standing up for what you believe in..."

Although life on the campaign trail is rough, workers said they are happy about their choice of profession.

"I enjoy being involved in politics, because the issues that you deal with change from day-to-day, week-to-week," said Dean Serpa, deputy regional political director for the Northeast region of the Pete Wilson for President campaign. "There are no prerequisites for success in politics. You need no educational back-ground, you need no wealth, it is just hard work that makes you successful."

"Campaigns attracted me, because it is not a 9-5 job, not a black or white job, every single minute is different," Mayberry said.

In a world where planes are frequently late, where inclement weather frequently ruins the best-planned event, where candidates run late after shaking one too many hands, campaign staffers say they must sometimes rearrange the entire daily schedule in order to accommodate the delay.

"Lamar's plane today got diverted and was forced to land in Boston at Logan. So I had to race to Logan to pick him up then I had to quickly reschedule two radio appearances, meetings with the mayor and the police chief," Mayberry said.

Campaign workers say long days like this make their tempers shorter, their smiles a little more half-hearted and their handshakes a little less firm.

"I get here early in the morning and take lunch around 3:30 in the afternoon. I'm sad to say that I don't have time to cook, I can't even eat pasta when I come home late at night...I don't have time to sit there and wait for the water to boil," said McCabe, who said he works six or seven days a week, eleven hours a day.

McCabe, like the other campaign workers, skips healthy meals and the campaign trail, stopping instead at the nearest fast-food drive-thru.

In election year, the family doctor's advice on healthy eating is ignored for their candidate's sake, the four food groups quickly become McDonald's Burger King. Dunkin' Donuts and Denni's.

"You are never paid well, the hours are incredibly long...but you also tend to get an affinity for Denny's at three in the morning." Prats said.

"I have eaten so much McDonald's, it's unbelievable," Mayberry said. "Every time I drive up to the drive-thru, I am hoping that I will find something different on their menu."

Workers say they even develop a certain fast food aesthetic.

"McDonald's is my choice for fast food, everything on their burger is small and in the center and it is clean. When I go to Burger King or Wendy's, there is always that danger of having a tomato or union fall out of the burger and getting on you." Mayberry adds with a laugh.

And some days the campaign's most important decision is not whether to issue a press release or run an attack ad, but where to go when there is no fast food for miles--a situation all too common in predominantly rural New Hampshire.

"When we go up to the North Country, they don't have any McDonald's anywhere. You go up there hoping to get some good food," McCabe said. "But you just learn to live on what they have around."

Lonesome Trip to the Top

Not only do workers diets suffer while they are on the campaign trail, but their personal lives do as well.

While many of their friends hang out at a bar on a Saturday night, many said they are frequently stuck in some office in some town in New Hampshire planning next week's schedule, while overhearing the constant whir of the nearby fax machine.

"You give up a lot of your personal life," Mayberry said with a sigh. "You get home at 11 p.m. one night and find out that you missed your mother's birthday...Friends soon begin to drift away."

And then as if it to prove his point, Mayberry took a pager from his back pocket and placed it on the table.

"It's with me 24 hours a day, I go out to a restaurant, it's with me, I go out to a bar and it's with me," he said.

Mayberry added. "And now that I am working on this campaign. I just can't get drunk one night and go stumbling down the street, because I represent Lamar Alexander now. It's like I am a pseudo-candidate."

McCabe advised any Harvard student interested in working on a political race, that his or her personal life will be easily consumed by the vast commitments of the campaign.

"When you sign on to a campaign, you commit to working on the campaign until its over," McCabe said. "I have given a lot of my personal life, I have to travel to the North Country tomorrow and miss my father's memorial mass."

And romantic relationships? Forget them, campaign workers said There is too much travel, too much uncertainty, too low a salary and too many hours at the office for a normal relationship to work out.

"It is really tough to have a relationship during a campaign," Prats said. "I had one back in '92 and our relationship was not broken up, but strained because of the campaign."

Prats said he learned from his experience and now warns friends who are interested in working on a campaign of the dangers of mixing a relationship and a political race.

"Anyone who is in a relationship and wants to get involved in a campaign, I sit them down and tell them, 'Make sure you call, never forget birthdays, never forget anniversaries...," Prats said.

The One Date

Despite the hard work and the solitude, workers say there will be time later for that special relationship, for now, the only date that matters, is Election Day.

"Election Day is, believe it or not, the quietest day in the campaign office," Mayberry recalled. "You are just preparing for the night. That night, when the election results start coming in, you have the mental calculator cranking all night. It is an emotional roller coaster."

Yet, during this tumultuous day, the sense of finality is also on their minds.

"Election Day, you're up at three in the morning getting things ready and then you wait until seven in the evening sitting on pins and needles," Prats remembered. "But if you win, you don't care how tired you are."

Win or lose on this day, friends met in the campaign office will be moving on and the campaign office, their "home" for the past few months will close. Although working on the campaign was rough, it paid and it was a job.

"Election Day is like the Super Bowl, you work the whole season to prepare for just one day and when it's over, it's over," McCabe said. "It's so quick...the day after, you lock the door, turn off the lights, clean the files and then it is over."

"In New Hampshire, it's over on February 20 and February 21 I am technically unemployed," Mayberry said.

But workers were not yet thinking about the end of the road on a Friday night in late September. On that night, in a rare occurrence, workers received a free meal of spaghetti and fresh bread courtesy of the Institute of Politics.

However, the campaign must go on and so most of the workers quickly began tearing down the signs and packing away the promotional materials. And as the lights dimmed, the courtesy meal could not even entice them to stay longer.

Workers soon hurriedly left the Kennedy School on their way back up to the Granite State on 1-93, knowing that there are plenty of golden arches on the interstate.