Community Service?
July 23, 2002
Back in high school, I was a member of an organization for academically excellent juniors and seniors - the National Honor Society. One of the membership requirements in this prestigious organization was a whopping 10 hours of community service per year. In order to fulfill this requirement, I chose to volunteer for an organization which many people would consider working for to be a disservice: the Bob Dole for President campaign. In particular, the mid-Pinellas County branch. Regardless of the merits of this "service," my efforts were nevertheless in vain, as Bob Dole did not win the state of Florida or even carry a majority of the votes in Pinellas County during his 1996 run for the White House. Despite the objective failure, I still learned a lot and value the experience as formative of my burgeoning political identity.
The first day I showed up to volunteer, the nice older woman who ran the office introduced me to some other volunteer staff members and told me about their current operations. The current project was to call and invite "involved" Republicans to an open-house celebrating the formation of this new office. She sat me down with a phone, a list of numbers to call, and a list of information I needed to get across to each of the callees. I was a shy youth, and uncomfortable about talking to strangers on the phone, but my enthusiasm overpowered my reluctance, and I started making the calls. To my surprise, most of the people welcomed my call and were happy to hear that the Republican party was organizing an event. I left that evening satisfied in the work I had done and promised to return the following week.
The next week I attended the open-house which I had invited so many people to the week before. The office was packed, and many local Republican politicians were present, including then Senator, now Florida Secretary of Education Charlie Crist (who looks much shorter in person than on TV, and wears jeans and tennis shoes with a sports coat), and an African-American member of the Florida House, who had an extremely mild-mannered son of about my age. I managed to talk to every attendee for at a little while, since everyone felt compelled to comment on my youth and mention how they thought I would go far in politics, and that they wished more young people would get involved in government. Again, I left pleased.
I'm not too sure of the chronology of my remaining weeks as a volunteer. I remember coming down every Thursday after school and going through call lists or building yard signs. The call lists seemed to be organized from "most friendly" to "extremely hostile." That is, when I first started, most people were happy to hear from me, promised to vote for Bob Dole, asked about the upcoming debate, and, if they had a yard, asked where to pick up a sign. However, as the weeks progressed, people started hanging up once I brought up my purpose for calling, mentioned how they thought Clinton was doing a fine job so far, or that they had no interest in politics. Finally, toward the end of my tenure with the phones, nearly every callee was hostile towards all Republicans, and proceeded to blast Bob Dole for stealing away their social security money (we have a lot of retirees in Pinellas county).
I couldn't take any more of this abuse, so I asked to be moved to sign patrol instead. For this job, I would receive a list of addresses for people who had requested yard signs and I would drive out to their house and put it up for them. Since this did not involve interaction with hostile members of the public, I was much happier.
My final event with the Republican party came as my reward for working on the campaign. I got tickets to a viewing of the Kemp-Gore debate which was being held in downtown St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, there was only space enough for members of the press and party insiders to attend the debate live, so the College Republicans of USF set up a sort of party with a large projection screen. The viewing was held right across from the debate itself, so I still got to enjoy the wild political circus which followed the debates. I recall having a long talk with the representative of FRML (Floridians for the Reform of Marijuana Law) and being convinced for the first time of the need for marijuana legalization. The debate itself, if you recall, was lackluster, but the atmosphere and spectacle of the thing first-hand.
My political views have changed a lot since those days. Were I put back into 1996, I would still probably vote for Bob Dole (if only to not endure that whole Monica Lewinsky thing again), but I certainly wouldn't be as zealous as I was and I doubt I would have worked on his campaign. Still, I don't regret what I did then since I learned a lot about how a political campaign works "on the ground." I also enjoyed the feeling that activism brings of being part of a larger movement and "something big," even though my job seemed so small in comparison. I'm probably too cynical now to be so moved by a political candidate again (although John McCain came close). So much for youthful exuberance.