Students Spread Campaign Fever

As the Nov. date for the Massachusetts gubernatorial election fast approaches, many Harvard students and recent graduates find themselves swept up in the excitement of a faceoff featuring two alumni: Democratic incumbent Deval L. Patrick ’78 and Republican challenger Charles D. Baker ’79.

The students and alumni’s level of involvement ranges from boarding buses for weekend canvassing trips to working around the clock for full-time campaign jobs.

Gabriel S. Neustadt ’13 falls somewhere in the middle.

As an active Democrat and member of the Institute of Politics, he teaches civics in Cambridge public schools and serves on the IOP Survey Committee. Neustadt sought out an internship with the Patrick campaign on his own.

“The way politics works is, you just get involved,” he says.

A TYPICAL DAY ON THE CAMPAIGN

Neustadt worked on the operations aspect of the Patrick campaign this summer—a job that required attention to detail and careful analysis—and he continues to be involved part-time through the fall.

“Scheduling [Patrick’s] day is strategic,” Neustadt says. “You have to think about where he should visit and once you decide, you have to arrange for the events...And then at night, they would have fundraisers.”

Neustadt says he took pride in writing briefs that ended up on Patrick’s desk—a particularly meaningful task since he believes strongly in the governor’s work.

“When you look at the other candidates, the governor by far should be reelected,” Neustadt says. “I knew I had to work for him.”

That commitment held despite the fact that Neustadt hails from Florida: “I love politics,” he says. “I love being involved in Massachusetts politics since I’m going to be a resident for the next three years.”

GETTING ON THE BANDWAGON

The atmosphere of student political involvement was “one of the reasons why I came to Harvard,” Neustadt says, and while few current students are as involved in the campaigns as he is, campus political groups are also taking part in this year’s campaign.

On Sunday, the Harvard College Democrats took the first of several canvassing trips in Mass. and N.H. to campaign for Patrick, according to group President Jason Q. Berkenfeld ’11.

paign for Patrick, according to group President Jason Q. Berkenfeld ’11.

He says that the Dems first helped elect Patrick in 2006, and this year they will continue mobilizing students to help ensure that voters make it to the polls. The challenge, Berkenfeld says, lies not in student awareness of politics, but moving them to action.

On the Republican side, “record numbers” of freshmen attended the Harvard Republican Club’s first event, according to President Mark A. Isaacson ’11, a former Crimson editorial writer. He attributes the increased attendance to the upcoming election, and adds that many upperclassmen who previously had not been active in the club are now getting involved due to the momentum carried over from the success of Republican Scott Brown’s senatorial campaign last year.

Beginning next week, HRC members will make campaign phone calls at Baker’s headquarters, and they hope to campaign in N.H. and Conn. soon, according to Isaacson.

YOU’RE HIRED

Some Harvard students who were involved in political student groups have moved on to work full-time jobs upon graduation.

Elizabeth K. Mahoney ’05, a former HRC member and the current research director for the Baker campaign, says that she fell in love with politics as an undergraduate at Harvard. She had spent two of her summers during college working on congressional and state senatorial campaigns.

Mahoney’s current job involves responding to opponents’ claims in the press—making it, in her words,  “crazy” and “a blast.”

“The intensity has changed from when we first started,” says Mahoney, who officially joined Baker’s team last November. “Before, people were just trying to figure out who he was. We were fighting to get reporters to show up at events.”

On the other side of the campaign, Harvard Law School graduate Bridgette L. Hylton says that her interest in politics also began while at Harvard.

“During law school, the whole Obama thing happened,” says Hylton, who graduated from the school in 2009 and is now a staffer on Patrick’s campaign. “Obama really put me over the edge—I was really excited.”

Spurred by such excitement, Hylton began to take campaign trips organized by the Dems. Upon graduation, she initially worked at a New York law firm, but called Patrick’s office multiple times until she was offered a job. Hylton began as a volunteer coordinator and was eventually able to convince the campaign to offer her a job as a policy director.

FROM THE OUTSIDE-IN

Not all Harvard graduates working on the gubernatorial campaigns were heavily involved with politics when they were at Harvard—some took a less traditional path.

One such example is B. Kyle Armbrester ’07. Though he had been a member of the HRC, Armbrester says he never took part in politics and was more interested in pursuing IT-related activities on campus. A temporary assignment at the Baker campaign to support IT infrastructure drew him to return again and pursue a full-time job. Currently, he oversees online communications and IT on the Baker campaign.

“People work long hours, building up to one day,” says Armbrester, describing his first hands-on experience with a political campaign from inside-out. “It is very exciting and very hectic.”

He says that his background as a government concentrator helped him to understand the foundation of policy issues, but he describes the campaign work as “a lot like a start-up business.”

Armbrester sums up the enthusiasm and hectic schedule described by other Harvard affiliates working on the campaigns: “[The work] doesn’t stop on weekends,” he says.

—Staff writer Rediet T. Abebe can be reached at rtesfaye@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Linda Zhang can be reached at zhang53@college.harvard.edu.