Volunteers Play Politics

"The whole guts of our operation has been students," says James D. Spencer, field director for the Congressional campaign of Joseph P. Kennedy II. "They have the idealism, they have the energy, and they have the time."

Student involvement can be a significant factor in area political campaigns. This year, as usual, thousands of students workers stuffed envelopes, telephoned and knocked on doors for campaigns across the state.

The many campaigns to succeed Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. as Representative from the Eighth Congressional District especially attracted many students to fill the ranks at every level, including paid staff positions.

Spencer says that more than 1000 students had worked on the Kennedy campaign at various positions and periods over the course of the last year.

Noah M. Berger '89, who worked on the staff of State Senator George Bachrach's (D-Watertown) Congressional campaign, says, "It's more exciting than almost anything else you can do for a summer."

He says students provided a large part of the work on the campaign. As coordinator of telephoning on the campaign, much of Berger's work was organizing and working with student volunteers.

Berger says students had a large impact on the Bachrach campaign--in fact, four of the 10 paid staff members were Harvard students.

Bachrach's campaign was relatively small and gave motivated students responsibilities that bigger campaigns might not allow them, according to Berger, a Currier House resident and campus activist.

"If you can do it, campaigns can let you do it," explains Bachrach's campaign manager, Elizabeth Campbell-Elliot '71. "I couldn't ask for more committed, thoughtful people than these students."

The Campaign to defeat Proposition 1 is another that has attracted a lot of student involvement this fall. The proposition is a referendum question that would give the state legislature more control over the funding and regulation of abortions.

Kimberly B. Ladin '87-'88, who has been working with the campus abortion rights group, Students for Choice, says, "It's definitely the kind of issue you would expect students to mobilize for."

While no Harvard students have visibly campaigned for the initiative, Ladin estimated that 100 Harvard students had actively worked in the campaign to defeat it.

Mark M. Kataoka '87, who took last semester off to work on the unsuccessful Bachrach campaign, says that working hard on a campaign is an engulfing experience. "You just live the campaign all of the time. On a campaign, you have this ultimate goal, and the energy level and the excitement just build and build," he says.

"It was definitely the most exciting seven months of my life," says Kataoka, a History and Science concentrator from Dunster House.