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T H E P U L L O F P O L I T I C Sa personal turning point. “We went door todoor in the rain,” he said. “Everyone was tiredand sort of cranky after hours in the cold, and Iwas just exhilarated. I said, ‘I’ve got to find away to keep doing this.’”He did. In fact Firestone, a field directorfor Hillary Clinton, was behind the scenes ofher noteworthy upset in the New Hampshireprimary. Firestone had interned on the Gorecampaign, took a semester off from college towork for John Kerry in Florida, worked as afield director for former New HampshireGovernor Jean Shaheen’s Senate race in 2002,then moved on to the Massachusetts DemocraticParty and Massachusetts Governor DevalPatrick’s campaign, where he says he learned thefundamentals of grassroots organizing—skills heput to use in Manchester.Firestone might have settled into a job in thePatrick administration, but he wasn’t ready torelinquish the rush of campaign work. “What Ireally enjoy and what motivates me is seeinghow organizations are built, seeing how peoplecan be mobilized around an idea and around acandidacy,” he said. He spent nine monthsorganizing Clinton’s campaign in New Hamp -shire, eventually managing a staff of twenty inthe region around the state’s largest city—apopulation block important to Clinton’s eventualwin.On a typical day, Firestone would holdClinton signs during the morning commute (“Ibelieve really strongly in never asking people todo things I won’t do myself”), then, around 8:30a.m., would arrive at the office and set up packetsof information and maps for volunteers whowould be canvassing door to door. “You needvolunteers to drive people to polls, bring foodin, make phone calls, go door to door, holdsigns, help other volunteers,” he said. The pacewould continue until about 9:00 p.m., whenFirestone would prepare for the next day’s routine.He’d get home by 11:00 p.m. or midnight—aseven-day-a-week pace with never a dayoff. “Of course there’s a physical toll in the campaign,”he said. “You get up to do what you doday after day because you believe in what you’redoing.”After the unexpected New Hampshire victory,the Clinton campaign named FirestoneTennessee’s field director, and he took the tech-CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008Teacher Emeritus Bill Bailey’spolitical legacy at CA(clockwise from above):Bailey with Paul Tsongas;Michael Dukakis with Bailey’sclass (Dukakis spoke at a CAassembly in 2000);Bill Bradley with CA students,including Mike Firestone ’01,far right18Photos courtesy of Bill Bailey