Team Pittsburgh's Big Secret

PITTSBURGH—At 12:30 a.m. on July 7, the day Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., announced his choice of Sen John R. Edwards, D-N.C., as running mate, I arrived at the Pittsburgh airport to relieve Reggie from the exciting but monotonous job of babysitting John Kerry’s 757. I walked into the terminal expecting to find Reggie, who was on my advance team, but instead found myself staring into the lens of an ABC news camera. I headed back out, trying to look inconspicuous in my suit and realized that I had a big Kerry sticker on my backpack. I peeled it off and threw it away, as if the cameraperson had not already noticed.

I called Reggie, who had been at the airport since the early afternoon, and he said I should walk along the sidewalk to find him. A minute later I heard a whistle to my left and turned. A car door opened and smoke poured out. He strained to step out and I happened to look across the fence that surrounds the tarmac. The campaign’s charter plane seemed very close in the dark. Reggie pointed out that a good part of the forward fuselage above the windows was covered in brown paper.

“See that,” he said, “you better hope it doesn’t rain.” I suddenly realized that my suspicions regarding this late night mission had been completely wrong. I had suspected that I was at the airport to meet the running mate’s plane. Though the campaign had kept the secret of the announcement from everyone including the advance team, we were all suspicious and I could think of no other reason to wait around the airport all night. But suddenly it was real. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

All I knew at the time was that I had to make sure rabid scoop-hungry journalists could not could not jump the fence and tear the paper enough to see what was beneath it. The night passed without incident, but it seemed like one of the longest nights of my life. For a while I tried to guess which name it was based on the length of the paper. I thought for sure it was Vilsack and then Gephardt, because the paper seemed to be low enough to cover a lower-case P. I never guessed Edwards. I was too tired to sit without falling asleep and too excited to avoid pacing.

At 6:15 a.m. I returned to my other duties, which included loading the baggage of 50 press and 20 traveling staffers onto the luggage truck. I watched over the departure of the all the staff from the hotel, and at 8:20 a.m., when I was sure everyone was gone, I headed to Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh to assist with the event. I helped direct the people though the barricades, filling them in where it would look just right for the photo. A young but expert crowd herder gave me and 15 volunteers orders on directing the crowd, moving barricades and keeping people happy. He had explained the day before that all of his orders came with a please and thank you, even if he lacked the time to articulate them.

Our brilliant and seasoned site workers had hidden a huge Kerry Edwards banner behind the stage and many t-shirts and placards underneath. They ran around with unshaven faces, wearing t-shirts from past Kerry rallies and police-style radios strapped to their shoulders, making sure that every detail of the rally, from the flags to the rope line music, would be perfect. Like me, they had been up all night. Unlike me, they would catch flights that very afternoon to build the site of a rally in Raleigh, N.C., which drew 25,000 people four days later.

Though the experiences I am having on the campaign are incredibly unforgettable and rewarding, the best part about the campaign is the people I work with. Every person on staff cares deeply about changing this country and is willing to work seven days a week and often miss sleep in order to accomplish this goal. They put their personal lives on hold for a purpose that will change history.

Another group that I’ve come to appreciate through my interactions is the secret service agents, especially in light of my previous stereotype of them as rigid and humorless. Like the advance staff, the agents work long and thankless hours with an incredible level of professionalism.

Whether on the road or in the office, I have never met more committed and die hard workers than the people I work with on the campaign. Behind the scenes, they rarely receive recognition for their toil. Sometimes Subway is the closest they come to dinner and four hours is the closest they come to a night’s sleep. But they survive with a sense of humor, large amounts of satay, and common goals. And I cannot forget the cheerful charter flight crew who have sacrifice six months of their lives to participate in this marathon. I will be eternally grateful for the lunch they bought me at a deli near our hotel when I had no cash.

In my short experience in the real world, I’ve never seen people work as hard and love their jobs as much as those who work on the campaign. As an advance genius told us at Advance School, “we are involved in the single largest nonviolent takeover in the history of the world.” But I think that beyond a common purpose, we are drawn together by a sense of community and interdependence.

I’ve never done something as uplifting. I want to savor this while it lasts because the days are flying by. And whether we end in victory or defeat, I’ll share it with the best team I have ever been a part of.

Nicholas F. B. Smyth ’05, a government concentrator in Dunster House, is an editorial editor of The Crimson. Despite some news reports to the contrary, he did not have a sleeping bag at the airport.