Iowa legend Vilmain back in Mass. for Khazei

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

Teresa Vilmain, the legendary Iowa caucus organizer, has all but become a resident of Massachusetts this year.

Between a stint early in the year as a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and her current job as consultant to Alan Khazei's Democratic campaign for US Senate, she has spent most of 2009 in the Bay State.

Vilmain, a high-octane figure in many Democratic campaigns, has a political resume as long as her arm. An Iowa native who now lives in Wisconsin, she is no stranger to Massachusetts Democrats. She worked for Edward M. Kennedy in the 1980 Iowa presidential caucus, led Michael S. Dukakis's 1988 caucus effort in the Hawkeye State, and helped John F. Kerry's presidential election campaign in 2004 as strategist at the Democratic National Committee. She led Hillary Clinton's Iowa caucus effort last year.

Her connections to Khazei, the social entrepreneur who co-founded City Year, date back to hiring his future wife, Vanessa Kirsch, to work on the Dukakis campaign in Iowa. Vilmain is also a consultant to Khazei's latest civic engagement enterprise, Be The Change.

The Khazei campaign also provides a Bay State homecoming of sorts for the campaign's communications consultant, Michael Meehan, a Raynham native based in Washington, who for many years worked on the staff and campaigns of Kerry.