In order to graduate junior year at my school, everyone has to write a six to eight page profile on a person in the community they do not know well, but interests them. Most people chose their subject, did their research, and promptly fell out of touch. A few people might have coffee once in a while with their subject, although they will probably fall out of touch as well. However, I think I managed to form a lasting bond with my subject, a young man who I would to be like when I reach his age.
All names and places have been changed for privacy.
Jack Valentine ran for class president in fourth grade. He remembers "I did make pencils with those little fuzzy balls with googly eyes. That was pretty sweet campaign marketing. The fuzzy guy with googly eyes had a ribbon on it that said ‘Jack’ or something." He lost, because, otherwise, as he puts it, "I was a disaster. I should have had a better campaign manager."
Seventeen years later, Jack is still in the election business. This time, instead of working a fourth grade classroom, Jack is the field director at the Democratic Party headquarters in a California suburb. In elections, Democratic Party volunteers are responsible for most of the on-the-ground-work, and Jack is responsible for the volunteers who man the phone banks, poll-watch, and canvass. An office that was only expected to reach a few thousand people made contact with over twenty thousand households over the course of the election, all thanks to Jack.
Jack has short blond hair and puppy-dog brown eyes and a round face. He usually wears blue jeans and a tee shirt with some sort of writing or graphic design on it, although he will wear polo shirts on occasion. His ears are pierced, a small earring in each ear, and there is a small tattoo of a heart over the veins in his right wrist. At first glance, Jack looks like any other twenty-something, with his iPhone glued to his hand and his worn flip-flops. It is only after Jack opens his mouth and starts talking about the election that it is clear he is no average twenty-six-year-old. He has dedicated himself to politics, working nonstop on campaigns for over two years.
Jack’s interest in politics started after 9/11. As he remembers it, "a lot of people in the country at large had a knee-jerk reaction that was like ‘we’re going to go to war. We’re going to get these people who did this to us’ and this kind of thing, and I really did not jump on that bandwagon." Instead, Jack joined Greenpeace and went to anti-war rallies in San Francisco, "half of it was because they were fun and half of it was because, you know, I believed in what they were saying." He was seventeen years old. Now, almost a decade later, Jack has focused his beliefs: to become more mainstream and progressive, and works for the Democratic Party.
Before getting involved in politics, Jack debated becoming a doctor, but eventually decided against it because "I can’t do math." Even earlier, as a child, he had wanted to be a firefighter. When he told his family at a reunion, his eight-year-old cousin said "‘You wanted to be a firefighter?’ and she couldn’t stop laughing, so she obviously never saw me as being a firefighter, and I probably was never going to be one."
Jack started college at a state school, but ended up transferring to school in Denmark for a few years. Copenhagen is one of his favorite cities and he has some family there. He thinks that most of his progressive beliefs formed while he lived in Denmark, and "for all the Tea Party talk of ‘Obama’s trying to make this like Sweden and Denmark and Scandinavia’, well those are actually really good countries that have a lot of things on the right track."
By noon on Election Day, things are not going too smoothly. All the poll watchers should have called in, but some are missing. The phone bank does not have nearly enough people. The Organize For America volunteers are too loud and are drinking all the water. Still, Jack is not too worried about the election and thinks the Democrats will do well in the election. The only candidate he has been truly worried about since the primaries is Kamala Harris because, "she’s seen as a San Francisco liberal. Well, so is [Gavin Newsom], but he has money and name recognition."
Jack grabs a can of soda and steals a Hershey’s bar from a bag of leftover Halloween candy. He yawns and rubs his eyes. "I haven’t slept for two days. I haven’t showered for a week. I’ve been living off of donuts. I’m getting fat. I’m exhausted. I’m about to fall over. I want a 9-5 gig, not something 24-7." After nearly two years of straight campaigning, Jack wants a job working in the state legislature, not lobbying or campaigning. He eventually wants to either work in national politics or run a think tank. When I ask if he would ever run for public office, Jack just laughs, "Maybe, until I opened my mouth. Do you know how much trouble I’d get into for the things I say?"
When I first met Jack, I assumed he was just out of college. He always had a big smile and laughed often. Once the campaign was over, he seemed like a different person, more mellow and low-key, but still just as passionate and funny.
Jack came out of the closet at age eighteen. He said his family was accepting, although "they didn’t understand right away, but they were fine. We talked about it. We worked through it. I had great support. I didn’t have a lot of issues." While Jack says he did lose a few religious friends, "I sort of had a ‘go screw yourself’ attitude about it. I wasn’t going to let anyone get me down, so it didn’t really affect me."
Homophobia has only really affected Jack twice and both times "it’s affected me by watching how it’s affected other people." One of his first serious romantic relationships ended when the other person refused to come out of the closet.
Jack had a close friend growing up who, in college, killed himself because of homophobia from both his family and his classmates. When talking about his friend, Jack grows quieter, playing with the zipper on his sweatshirt and not making eye contact. It’s the same reaction he has when I ask him about his high school experience. Whenever a painful memory comes up, Jack either changes topic or becomes introverted and restless. In the end, he just tells me he wants to see the bullying, especially from adults in positions of power to stop, because he thinks that would stop a lot of the problems lesbian and gay teenagers have.
At two o’clock, Jack trains the next batch of poll watchers. Over the course of the day, the office, a room plastered with old campaign posters and filled with tables, gets progressively fuller. Jack has changed out of his jeans into a pair of black basketball shorts. He catches my eye and laughs, explaining, "I had to change into shorts because my freaking zipper ripped." It is time to train volunteers. It can be a hard job, especially since the majority of them happen to be retired, a group of people who do not take direction particularly well. To make matters worse, Jack does not give directions particularly well. As he puts it, "you have to tell them exactly what do and I suck at that. I’m like, ‘Go and see who voted.’" He just tells the volunteers to look at the posted lists for who voted, and reminds them the list of voters is "going to have Republicans on it. All sorts of nasty stuff," and says not to call him "unless you have a problem, only if you’re arrested or something." The volunteers laugh and Jack starts handing out directions to different polling locations.
Jack still struggles to find ways to escape political intensity, mostly because "I’m young and new to this and I’m intense and driven," and not having an out scares him. Most nights, he goes home and turns on MSNBC or C-SPAN, or reads political theory until he falls asleep. One of the few ways he can forget about campaigning is through snowboarding: "I forget about everything when I’m snowboarding."
Jack is mostly quiet about his personal life. He tells me his favorite books- Harry Potter and the Steig Larsson books- and his favorite activities- snowboarding, cooking, traveling, and reading- but he does not say much about his family or the time between elementary school and college. When I ask about his family, he just tells me he has an older sister who is a nurse and he is "very different from his family." Jack does make it clear that he loves his family, despite their differences. However, one topic he will not touch is the period from age eleven to age seventeen or eighteen, middle school and high school. I am guessing he did not have a good teenage experience. I do not pry.
Jack has a sense of humor that comes out in full force when he is exhausted. Instead of yelling, he starts laughing or mumbling to himself. When Jack hears the results from Kentucky, he orders everyone to stop what they are doing, and proclaims, "Rand Paul is a United State senator. Someone get me a weapon the Republican Party wants to lift the ban on." At around five or six in the evening, Jack comes up to some callers and stands in front of them, hands on his hips. "Will you hold that call? I need to yell at everyone." The callers exchange looks. "Just kidding." As the night progresses, Jack grows more and more frantic. As soon as the polls close, he stands up on the table, arms outstretched. "Terrible news. Meg won." He starts to laugh as soon as Matt, the other field director, throws a crumpled piece of paper at him and misses, and gets off of the table to congratulate the volunteers for their hard work.
It some ways, Jack still is like the boy I imagine he was in fourth grade. Although he remembers being "a really quiet kid. I like, ate lunch alone in school and, like, had no friends," Jack is the first to admit "I was very immature. I was just immature. That’s how simply I can explain it. I was interested in playing cars and digging holes and climbing trees, stuff like that. I was really hyper and funny and probably drove my parents crazy."
Jack was also clumsy and accident-prone. He remembers "I used to spill my milk at every single dinner and I always got into trouble for that." At age eight, he was in his grandparents’ house and running around when he "just cut the corner too short and ran right into it and took a good chunk right out of the wall." Jack claims it "didn’t hurt my head any, well not physically anyhow, not any damage that shows."
As soon as the polls close, Jack grabs a bottle of beer and turns on the office television to MSNBC, where John Boehner is giving his first speech as the presumed Speaker of the House. Everybody, myself included, boos. Jack shakes his head. There are bright moments, of course. Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell both lose. However, for the most part, it is just watching a map of the United States become red, with a few splatters of blue. California flashes on the screen. The numbers are close, but MSNBC is calling it for the Democrats. Suddenly, everyone is jumping up, hugging, crying, and just shouting. Jack envelops me in a bear hug as he yells nonsense. His eyes are bright and he has a wide smile on his face.
By nine o’clock Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer have won. Rich Gordon, the newly elected State Assemblyman visits the office to give a speech to the volunteers. I see Jack leaning against the wall, beer in hand, watching Rich speak. He is smiling a half-smile and although the day is over, his shoulders are still tense and his eyes are still focused.