Making a difference in New Mexico's 3rd

You may ask what on Earth a born-and-raised South Carolina sandlapper like myself is doing out here in the land of coyotes and roadrunners. The answer is simple: Ben Ray Lujan.

But to understand that, you'd have to look back a little further...

I got started on this whole political game at the ripe old age of 12. My next door neighbor's son-in-law was running for county council and had just gotten attacked in the local paper by a local political king-maker wannabe. So he hired me (for a whopping $20...don't laugh, it's a lot of money when you're 12) to canvass my own neighborhood with flyers pointing out the factual errors contained in that letter to the editor.

Mr. Moore didn't win that election, but by then I was hooked. Voter contact was a lot of fun...profitable, too!

So flash forward a few years. I was elected as third vice chair of my county party by the time I was 17, thanks to that loophole in SC law that allows 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the time of the general election to register and vote in the primaries and caucuses leading up to that election. After high school (and after killing a few years on the SC coast), I got involved in the local anti-war movement...and things got moving again. I enrolled in college at the University of South Carolina at Upstate, where I (of course) majored in political science. I began volunteering with the Spartanburg County Democratic Party, primarily working on get-out-the-vote programs. I went to Columbia as a delegate to the state party convention three years in a row...and that's where I met New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson way back in April 2007.

I knew he was a long shot to win the Democratic primaries, but the genuinely impressed me. And besides, I'm a South Carolina Democrat...I'm no stranger to long-shot campaigns. So the chairwoman of the county party got me in touch with his campaign, and presto, I'm a field organizer. And then I got transferred to Iowa...

If you've never been to Iowa during caucus season, you have no idea what you're missing. For a few months every four years, the state of Iowa becomes the center of the political universe. If you sneeze in Des Moines, there'll always be a Presidential candidate nearby who'll offer you a Kleenex. It's a surreal experience, to be sure...

Anyways, long story short, I ended up meeting all manner of political big shots from the state of New Mexico thanks to the campaign I was working for. No, we didn't do nearly as well in Iowa as we'd hoped (but it wasn't from a lack of trying!) So, after coming back to South Carolina and working a gas station job for a few months, the Ben R. Lujan campaign came calling. They needed someone to help organize eastern New Mexico, and they seemed to recall some country boy from South Carolina who'd be perfect for that position...

So I must thank 21st Century Democrats for making this all possible. Yes, climatologically speaking, I'm a little out of my element here, but the issues facing rural America are very similar no matter what state you're in. It feels good to be working for a candidate who not only understands these issues but has made a career out of addressing them. For once in my checkered career as a political operative, I feel like I'm making a real difference.