Political Students Chill Out in New Hampshire ST. PETERSBURG (WUSF) - Twenty-one students from USF's St. Petersburg campus are getting a hands-on feel for the ins and outs of a political campaign. The students from a USF political science class are in New Hampshire, volunteering their time for their favorite presidential candidates.

What they're finding out is how hard it is to work the phones and stand outside during rallies to cheer on their candidate. And they're also finding out that politics is the only thing that's hot in New Hampshire in the dead of winter. The low in Concord last night was minus-eleven degrees.

YORRA: It's been pretty amazing that we stand outside for 2 1/2 hours in the freezing cold, negative degrees, and subject ourselves to that, but it's all for a good cause.

Alexandra Yorra chose to volunteer with the Wesley Clark campaign. She says she is drawn to his intelligence and charisma. And his electability, which is not far from the minds of most of the pragmatic New Hampshire voters.

The class is the brainchild of Professor Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan. She teaches a course called "The Road to the White House." McLauchlan has worked on several political campaigns, and served as greetings director for President Bill Clinton. This is the first time she's organized such a class. McLauchlan says what the students get is something they could never learn in a classroom.

McLAUCHLAN: We start early in the morning, we have seminar meetings, we set up field trips and speaker series for them, and they go to their campaign and they work eight, 10, 12 hours a day at the campaign. And they know frankly, that's only part-time compared to the staffers working there in their office. And they're overwhelmed by how much work goes into organizing one of these campaigns.

The crush of the heavy campaigning is on the mind of Jolene Bussiere. She chose to join John Kerry's campaign and got to meet him.

BUSSIERE: My expectations of the campaign and this entire experience have been challenged, and by far, just exceeded. We've gotten unbelievable experience just getting down to the nitty-gritty work that goes into a campaign. It's a wonderful feeling to be a part of something this important and see how much power and how excited a person can just excite people. It's really a humbling, humbling experience.

The New England cold has been an experience even for Bussiere, who moved to Florida two years ago from New Hampshire. Her web log states, "The only advantage of windburn is that if you get it bad enough it can sometimes look like a tan!!"

There are 23 candidates running for president on the Democratic ticket. And it may surprise some to know there's a primary for the Republicans, too. Thirteen people are opposing President Bush.
Mike Gagliardo is helping establish a volunteer base for the president's re-election campaign, while Democrats dominate the headlines.

Gagliardo says the president is one of the few candidates who reflects his political beliefs. That puts him in the definite minority of the USF students. He's one of only three of the students who consider themselves Republicans.

GAGLIARDO: It's a little tough, but as long as we don't bring up politics in our free time, everyone seems to get along really well. We're all just trying to find other bonds beyond our political beliefs. Tensions are high, I guess, with the different campaigns, but for the most part, I think we're all going to come back friends. And we're very friendly here, we all like to hang out together.

The whole class went to President Bush's campaign headquarters to hear about the re-election effort. They also saw Senator Joe Lieberman in Nashua and Wesley Clark in Manchester. Even though the president didn't travel to New Hampshire, the Republican students got to meet New York Governor George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudy Guilliani.

It's all be a life-changing experience for Alexandra Yorra. The 21-year-old says she's now thinking about becoming a press secretary or a speech writer. And the youthfulness of almost everyone involved in the campaigns has been an eye-opener.

YORRA: And they're the future leaders of this country, and I've been perplexed by it, because it has restored my faith in my generation. I was feeling that my generation was very uninvolved in politics. And coming up here and sharing something like this has really put the faith back into us as the future.

The students won't have only handshakes and snapshots to remember all this. Tampa native Julie Petrick is filming a documentary on all the campaigns.

She says the primary up there is nothing like Florida's.

PETRICK: The cool thing about New Hampshire is it is democracy at its best. It's normal people, middle-class working people getting to meet with every single candidate. If you're just seeing in a restaurant, they'll walk right in through the door and they want to talk to you. And people expect that up here. They want to meet every candidate before they decide who to vote for.

Petrick plans to give copies to everyone in the class.

New Hampshire may not be the end of the political road for all the students. Bussiere says she's ready to head straight to South Carolina next.

BUSSIERE: I'm ready! I'm jumping on the wagon!

The USF students are heading back to sunny Florida tomorrow morning. © Copyright 2009, WUSF