political campaigning internship. useful?

Marie51
Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:24:45 +0000

My son is an intern for the RNC this summer, and his position sounds similar to yours in some ways: voter registration, phone banking, completing forms, filling in electoral maps, manually recording information into Excel. I was (to put in mildly) ambivalent because of the quality of the work, but it was his dream internship, so he took what they gave him - in terms of position and lousy pay. It does not even cover his rent in DC for the summer. He said most people are not paid at all, but he is part of a summer program that pays a teensy weekly stipend- highway robbery, IMO, but I digress. Some of his fellow interns are well-connected, and they are doing the same grunt work as everyone else.

The organization sends the interns on trips or bring speakers (and photo-ops) in once a week. And the interns network like their lives depend upon it! This is a big benefit that I’ve noticed. He is meeting people who introduce him to others both inside and outside of the organization. They’re willing to connect him with local campaigns when he’s back at school or try to bring him back to DC once he graduates. They all seem to want to help. There are many higher up’s, national pollsters, national campaign managers, lobbyists, elected officials, press officials, and chiefs of staff, who were once lowly interns performing the same drudgery you are now.

What I’m trying to say is that despite the lack of intellectually challenging work and feeling a bit taken advantage of, you have opportunities to learn the ground game in a local office, a chance to show others what you’re made of, and people to mentor you (hopefully) and network with, and I don’t think that is a waste of time. See what you can do to get them to include you in other activities so you gain wider exposure to other parts of the organization that you might not be directly working in right now. You could also become involved in working on a local campaign instead of a national one. That might be valuable as well because they will be doing more with less people than the other way around.

Hope this helps some.