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T H E P U L L O F P O L I T I C Sniques he’d mastered in New Hampshire south.Another win, and he was on a roll. As of April,Firestone had worked on the Clinton campaignin New Hampshire, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas,and Pennsylvania.Nick Deane ’01, who was at Bill Bailey’shouse in 2000 when Firestone called, helped hisfriend on Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign.“I ended up in the Clinton campaign for Mike,”he said, but added, “I also have to say I thinkI’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid.”Deane had taken his first stab at campaignwork when Steve Grossman ran for governorof Massachusetts in 2002, then interned forLieutenant Governor Chris Gabrieli, followedby a stint for Shannon O’Brien’s gubernatorialcampaign, where he learned to do oppositionresearch. “O’Brien’s campaign was understaffedand the one researcher needed help,” he said.“He told me to pore through old news reports,read SEC records and tax filings.” Deane cameto understand when a story was pressworthy,and when pitching it would be unethical. Forexample, he didn’t find any reason to implicateMitt Romney in an accident in France, whichkilled the person in Romney’s passenger seat.“It was vaguely damaging, but it didn’t have anybeef, so we passed over it,” Deane said. Evidenceof Romney’s offshore accounts, however, wasconsidered fair game after careful considerationby research and press staff. Deane said theydiscussed, first of all, whether there could bebacklash from the story. Did their candidatehave offshore accounts too? “You have to makesure it’s not going to come back and bite you,”Deane said.Sarah Liebowitz ’99, who covered Clinton’scampaign for the Concord (NH) Monitor, knowswhat it’s like to get tips like that. “If it seemsinteresting you certainly poke around, but sometimesyou poke around and it doesn’t seem likethat big of a deal.” She said candidates’ medialiaisons were among her greatest challenges as ayoung reporter. “You have to be confidentenough to deal with the competing press people,”she said. “You’re going to have press peopleon both sides trying to spin you.”In 2004, Deane went on to volunteer forHoward Dean, then took a break from college towork for John Kerry’s campaign (at one pointalongside Firestone in an Orlando office). WhenJill Harken Hall ’61Adventures in IowaWhen Jill Harken Hall ’61 decidedto campaign for Barack Obama inIowa, she had a hunch that herfamily’s roots there might help her connectwith voters. “My grandfather was the townsurgeon and general practitioner in Osceola, atown south of Des Moines. He opened a smallcommunity hospital and was the principaltown doctor,” she said. “I wondered if peoplewould know the Harken name.”Hall has been a committed Obama supportersince the fall of 2006. “It’s very excitingto feel hopeful and to believe in someonewho I really think can pull the countrytogether, because God knows we’ve neverbeen more polarized,” she said.The first person Harken met in Iowa wasa police officer on the rural stretch betweenOsceola and Council Bluffs. He found herdriving a bit rushed—and being Dr. Harken’sgranddaughter didn’t help. “He kept spittinginto this Mountain Dew bottle. I kept wondering,what kind of illness does he have?” Hallsaid, later realizing that he was gnawing on awad of chewing tobacco.At first, canvassing door-to-door inOsceola wasn’t much more fun. Harken hadmade herself a button with her name on it,hoping to spark some recognition. “I wasgoing door to door, which I have to admit wasjust abysmally tedious,” she said. “A lot ofpeople weren’t home; it was cold and icy andjust kind of boring.”Near the end of the day, an elderly coupleinvited Hall in. They told Hall that her grandfather,Dr. Conreid Rex Harken, was theirdoctor. “They were sitting across from eachother in their recliners in their living room,”Hall remembered. “The husband was a registeredRepublican. The wife was eighty-twoand had never caucused, but was thinking ofdoing it for the first time, and she supportedObama.” Hall offered to pick her up, and(why stop there?) asked if she could put abanner in her yard, which was en route to acaucus site. The husband grumbled a bit butrelented after Hall said she would removethe banner when she brought his wife backhome after the caucus.The next morning, the day before thecaucuses, Hall went to coffee (they don’t say“for coffee” in Osceola), a morning ritual formany residents. It seemed that everyone at thediner knew Dr. Harken. She met her grand -father’s paper boy and several of his patients,including one who told a vivid story about hissister getting her arm caught in a washingmachine’s wringer and the expert skin graftand surgery that Dr. Harken performed.Hall had hoped to connect with someoneat her family’s farm, too, but no one had beenaround when she stopped by. Finally, on herthird try, she spotted a man on a tractor, whotold her he’d always wanted to meet a descendantof Dr. Harken. If that weren’t excitingenough, the farmer was anxious to discussObama. “I wish the wife could meet you,” hetold Hall, who promptly offered to pick himup for the caucus in the morning and spendsome time beforehand visiting with his wife.“When I got there the next day at 6:45a.m., he wasn’t there and she expressed somehesitation. I don’t think they’d ever caucusedbefore,” Hall said. But Hall persuaded bothof them to go, only later learning that thehusband was a registered Republican and hadto change his registration on the spot. “Theyweren’t terribly effervescent people,” saidHall. “They seemed to have had a good time.I can’t say they’ll be lifelong Democrats.”After the caucuses, she took home thefarming couple and the eighty-two-year-oldwoman. Hall kept her word and offered totake the Obama sign out of her yard. “I’dkind of like to keep it,” the woman told her.19WWW.CONCORDACADEMY.ORG SPRING 2008