Senior Intern for the Livingston County Democratic Office
Lindsey
Experience Information
Employer: Livingston County Democratic Office
Job Title: Senior Intern
Major: Political Science
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
The Livingston County Democrats are an organization that encourages grass roots organizing of Democrats within Livingston county. They participate in the local, state and national elections by recruiting candidates to run for office and volunteers to help with the elections. Another important part of the Livingston County Democrats is to provide an alternative voice in a county that is majority Republican and Tea Party. They try to serve this purpose through assorted outreach to the local community. The Livingston County Democrats hold meetings and other events to get Democrats within the community together as a group so they know they are not alone in a highly conservative county. Putting out news releases, Facebook, going door to door, conducting informational mailings and attending local parades and festivals are also popular tactics to do community outreach.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I was able to attend several fundraisers for candidates. I also participated in the petition drive to get raising the minim wage on the ballot this November. I was able to go to several events for Mark Schauer who is running to be Michigan's next governor. I helped organize and send out thank you letters to people who came to Winans Dinner and went to post office and learned how to send out bulk mail for the party. I went to a Heartland Memorial Day parade to work at the booth for Livingston County Democrats. I was able to meet a union rep who is highly involved with the Livingston County Democrats who talked about how unions are involved in the democratic parties politics. I went to Lansing to turn in my petition signatures to the Secretary of State to help Raise Michigan increase the amount of signatures needed to get the issue on the November ballet for public vote. My boss had me began to organize a list of people to come in and do phone banking for the Coordinated Campaign. The Coordinated Campaign combines the effort for both the congressional race and the gubernatorial race. We drew up the phone list of who would be called to volunteer. I created a spread sheet to organize and keep track of how many calls we made and what the responses were as well as created a spread sheet to keep track of which volunteers we called, should call, and track who was able to attend the phone banking that week and who would be able to help in future weeks. I attended campaign strategy meetings for the candidates running for office in Livingston County. I worked on recruiting other interns from the area so we could start canvasing for candidates. I went out canvasing, or going door to door asking people to vote for a candidate. I was also able to attend a debate that was happening between the candidates running for the 8th distract, 47th district and the 42nd district. I was able to attended a training seminar on how to oversee Election Day polls as an Election Day inspector. Although my internship officially ended on 8/1/2014 I will be working as a election day poll inspector in the Hamburg Township for the primary election on August 5th 2014.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
As the Senior Intern I learned how to open the office for the day. I learned about the Voter Activation Network (VAN) and how it works. The VAN keeps track of the registered voters in Michigan and what party they lean towards and a bunch of other information that is put together to keep track of what neighborhoods people have walked or what phones have already been called and to track what political events people have gone to. I also learned how to cut a turf for canvasing and how to create a list for phone banking. I learned how to run a phone bank. learned to design some campaign literature that candidates could use for the upcoming election. I did research on local issues that needed to be focused on by our local candidates.
Favorite Part of the Experience
I experienced a lot of personal growth from this internship. My favorite part of this experience was meeting a lot a lot of people, from candidates to volunteers, campaign managers and so many more people. I made so many connections with people which changed my life and helped me to grow a lot as a person.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience has influenced my personal carrier goals because I learned that there is so much I can do within this field. I knew going into this that I wanted to run for office one day but now I have a better idea of which office I would run for. I also feel that I can do other things with my life before I run for office. Such as working for a union or an activist organization such as Sierra Club. The possibilities are great.