Students to campaign in snowy New Hampshire

When Julia Friedlander '06 traveled to Manchester, N.H., last October to spend a weekend campaigning for Gen. Wesley Clark, she found herself sleeping among 50 other volunteers on gym mats at the local YMCA.

She and the three other Princeton students opted to spring for a room in an EconoLodge the following night, but despite the unglamorous accommodations and frigid temperature, Friedlander found the atmosphere so exciting that she knew she wanted to return over intersession.

"I came back thinking it was one of the best experiences I'd had in a long time," she said.

Next week, Friedlander and dozens of other Princeton students will head to New Hampshire to campaign for the Democratic presidential nominee of their choice in the days leading up to the Jan. 27 primary.

The students will be among thousands of volunteers descending on the state.

"The word I've heard over and over again is 'crazy,' " said Cate Edwards '04, who will spend six days campaigning with her father, Sen. John Edwards, a Democrat running for the party's nomination. "It's going to be just teeming with people."

The Edwards campaign has chartered a bus from Princeton to Manchester on Jan. 24, and roughly 20 students have already committed to the trip.

J.J. Saulino '03, who has been working at Howard Dean's New Hampshire headquarters since December, recently put out a call for volunteers to the Princeton Students for Dean email list. As of Monday, three students had responded.

Saulino said the campaign expects more than 4000 volunteers over the course of the month.

Princeton Students for Clark is organizing a trip leaving Jan. 23, and 11 students will be going independently before then, said founder Shlomi Sher GS.

The volunteer effort is particularly important because New Hampshire is such a small state, Sher explained. "In a single day, you can have contact with 1000 or more voters, and already that's not a negligible part of the electorate," he said.

To Edwards, a favorable election outcome is not the only reason students become involved.

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"It's about having young people get excited about democracy and about being part of the system," she said. "That's what really matters. It's important that people our age are involved and see democracy at work."

Regardless of which of the eight Democratic candidates they support, the student volunteers will likely spend their days making phone calls and canvassing on behalf of the candidates.

When Friedlander went to New Hampshire in October, she recalled, a campaign staffer dropped her and a partner off in an area neighborhood and told them to start knocking on doors.

"It was totally intimidating," Friedlander said. "I thought I'd just be hanging out."

Not all of the residents were receptive. Some shut the door, saying they were not interested. Others informed her they had already decided to support another candidate.

And some were caught at inopportune times. One elderly lady, who answered the door wearing a bathrobe and hair curlers, exclaimed, "You almost gave me a heart attack knocking on my door just now!"

But others expressed interest in learning more about the candidate, and Friedlander said she thinks she sold several on Gen. Clark.

She expects her experience next week to be similar. She has, however, learned that the accommodations will be slightly more upscale this time around: instead of the local YMCA, she will be sleeping on the floor of an unfurnished apartment.