Campaigns mean jobs for college grads

COLUMBIA, S.C. --Job prospects for college graduates are looking up thanks to the 2008 presidential candidates.

Eighteen contenders -- and counting -- translate into plenty of hiring by the campaigns of promising but untested newcomers, especially in states with early nominating contests.

In South Carolina, Laurin Manning is taking a break from law school to work as Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's jack-of-all trades, earning about $2,300 a month. Her office walls are bare, and her title for weeks was a work in progress.

"I'm doing a little bit of everything. Politics, communications, kind of liaison on policy -- that sort of thing," said Manning, 26, who sharpened her skills with one of South Carolina's best-read blogs and now is director of political operations for the campaign.

Manning spent a week last year working on Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's successful campaign. Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father," attracted her to his presidential bid.

"I wrote about politics for so long that I really needed to jump in there and see it from the inside," she said. "And I've learned that, in a lot of ways, I didn't know what I was talking about."

Terry Sullivan, Mitt Romney's South Carolina campaign manager, said recent graduates are logical picks for any candidate.

"Working on a campaign is the type of job that takes a lot of energy and the ability to stay up all night working," Sullivan said. That's a skill "fresh in the mind of every college student," he said.

Some campaigns also want a homegrown face for their messages. Kati Youmans, 22, is a University of South Carolina graduate who has worked on political campaigns since her freshman year and now is a paid Romney staffer.

"You have to get started that early," said Youmans. "There's just no better way."

Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said that hiring fresh, local talent -- even the untested kind -- helps a campaign avoid the appearance of out-of-state people or Washington insiders running the show.

The entire staff doesn't have to come from the state, Fowler said, "but they have to show that they don't think that South Carolianians are too dumb to do the jobs."

For South Carolina Republicans, this year's bumper crop of candidates has top-tier campaigns putting recent college graduates on the GOP payroll.

Arizona Sen. John McCain hired Somer Grasser, who managed a winning state House campaign last year and graduated from Bob Jones University last month. She's working as a field representative along with Vic Bailey, a former chairman of the South Carolina College Republicans who's just finishing up at Furman University.

"It's not just politics, it's something I believe in," said Grasser, 22, a political science major from Mansfield, Ohio, who is earning about $2,100 a month. "I'm working for something that my heart is in."

Bailey, a 22-year-old political science major who has volunteered for political campaigns since high school, said it's a great feeling to have his first paid political job. "I feel like I'm living what I studied for four years," said the Spartanburg native.

In New Hampshire, Colin Pio, who graduated from Saint Anselm's College last month, is part of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's New Hampshire political team. From his desk, he is helping Clinton target support among law enforcement officers, Latinos and other voters. The 22-year-old started in Clinton's organization in February, months before he had his degree.

"It was the second semester in a row I worked full time. A lot of it was having very accommodating professors who understood when I missed class many days in a row," said Pio, who worked on Gov. John Lynch's re-election bid last year.

Up the hall, Colin Gately is working in Clinton's communications office. He starts his day at 6:30 a.m., reading newspapers online and copying headlines for his bosses. He's only finished his first year at Emerson College in Boston, but he's already on the phone trying to pitch stories to reporters.

"I'm going to have a talk with my parents at the end of the summer because it's going to be tricky to go back," said Gately, who interned last summer at the New Hampshire Democratic Party headquarters. "In these two weeks, I've taken away more than I have in two semesters of college."

The hiring practices are different in Iowa. Campaigns are loading up on veteran staffers in the state that votes first with its caucuses.

"I think the focus is both experience and understanding the political mechanism of the state," said Matt Paul, a Democratic consultant who is not affiliated with any candidate.

For both parties, the presidential campaigns also build a new generation of political operatives. The Democratic Party in South Carolina, for example, has been struggling to regain its clout in the Republican-leaning state.

"They're going to learn the most modern campaign techniques and they're going to learn things they can't learn in college," Fowler said.

Said Michelle Macrina, South Carolina director for Democratic hopeful Chris Dodd's campaign: "It builds the bench."

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Associated Press writers Philip Elliott in Concord, N.H., and C.J. Jackson in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.