CS 490 Blog Elliott Stewart

This week I had the opportunity to do something different outside of the office. The campaign has been distributing yard signs across Indiana. I had to pick up the signs and drive to four different counties in Indiana dropping them off to county coordinator so that they can distribute them to the people in that area. It wasn’t much work just about five hours driving and finding the drop off place. They have had people doing this for the past few weeks for every county in Indiana. It was fun in the morning when I did some logistics work trying to find the best routes and plan on when I could meet the people to drop the signs off. It was kind of nice because the campaign reimburses your gas by the mile so I ended up getting more money then I actually spent on gas.  

Elliott Stewart (CS 490)

Its been a little different pace at work. With the other interns back and forth from their spring breaks some of the normal stuff that is taken care of the other days was passed onto me. I didn’t mind because it was a good change of pace. I had to do a lot of errands at work just getting things for future events. I wish I could have this internship over the summer because that’s when the election will pick up and things will become more exciting because more people will be paying attention to the election. I do enjoy seeing what all goes into putting on a campaign of this size. I think it’s something that I could do a career or I would at least like to start out doing it after college. I would like to work on a national campaign so that I could potentially travel across the United States. I’m thinking in a few weeks things at the office will start to pick up and go more into its full campaign mode. Some things I do like about right now is that they are trying to raise money and it’s cool to see the different ways they try to raise the money. I don’t think I could ever be in that part of the campaign because I don’t like asking for money but the people here are very good at what they do and it’s kind of admirable.Its been a little different pace at work. With the other interns back and forth from their spring breaks some of the normal stuff that is taken care of the other days was passed onto me. I didn’t mind because it was a good change of pace. I had to do a lot of errands at work just getting things for future events. I wish I could have this internship over the summer because that’s when the election will pick up and things will become more exciting because more people will be paying attention to the election. I do enjoy seeing what all goes into putting on a campaign of this size. I think it’s something that I could do a career or I would at least like to start out doing it after college. I would like to work on a national campaign so that I could potentially travel across the United States. I’m thinking in a few weeks things at the office will start to pick up and go more into its full campaign mode. Some things I do like about right now is that they are trying to raise money and it’s cool to see the different ways they try to raise the money. I don’t think I could ever be in that part of the campaign because I don’t like asking for money but the people here are very good at what they do and it’s kind of admirable.

  

Elliott Stewart (CS 490) blog

With more and more events going on during the month of March I find myself being doing more independent work at the office. Personally, I don’t like working alone because it seems boring. I like to be able to interact with others that are doing similar work. Lately I have sat in a cubical doing work on the computer and answering phones. I understand the need for this but it’s definitely not something I could do for a career. I enjoy that ability to bounce ideas off of others so I can produce the best possible work. The work that I’ve been doing hasn’t been to challenging or open for me to really mess up so it’s not necessary for me to work with others. Hopefully it will soon go back to how it was at the beginning of the internship.     

Elliott Stewart (CS 490)

This week was a little slow because most of the work was out of the office stuff. Many of the employees had to attend dinners and banquets so didn't come into the office much. I was mainly in charge of doing the daily tasks of the office.

I did get to over hear some really interesting conversations between a few different people. Mainly there was a lot of talk about future fundraising and how much they expected to earn in the upcoming months. It’s really intriguing to listen to people talk about multimillion dollar exchanges like they aren't that big of a deal. It's a aspect of campaigning I've never been a part of and listening to it made me interested to possibly working with the fundraising department.   

Elliott Stewart GS 490 blog

This week at my internship has really slowed down. The congressman that I'm representing has lost his competition for the primary. The other guy who was going to oppose him dropped out because he didn't complete his petitions to be placed on the ballet. Those very same petitions I have been working with during my time  as an intern. That made me realize that the work I'm doing at first might not seem extremely exciting but its very important to the overall goal. 

Now that we don't have to worry about debates with a same party candidate, the campaign is starting to focus on the future goals for when the election starts to heat up. There is a lot of talk about fund raising and planning events for public recognition. I've kind of went back to the normal work answering phones, doing trips to the post office, and interring and interpreting data. I’m still enjoying my time during the internship and I would recommend to everyone to take the opportunity to work in their field because it’s helped me see what life after college would or could be like in the real world.  

4th post (GS 490)

This week was a little more exciting because we had to have all our petitions in to the secretary of state’s office so our candidate could be put on the ballot. The other candidate that was running for the republican nomination didn’t get the requirements in so he didn’t get placed on the ballot. The election will be slowing down for a little because it’s really far away from now and the person I work for is a congressmen and he needs to be in Washington D.C so all his attention isn’t on the election right now. This last Saturday our campaign got to eat with Mitch Daniels which was really exciting. I got my first chance to do some kind of independent research and that was really motivating that the higher ups would trust me to do important research for them.

3rd Blog (Elliott Stewart GS 490)

This was my third week at my internship. The past few times in the office haven’t been overly exciting but the work I’m doing is still important. I have been entering important data about different supporters across the state. This is necessary so that the campaign can contact supporters and let them know about events in their areas. Also I have been running errands for the office to different locations. Mainly I have been in charge of putting important information into envelopes and making sure they will get to the proper locations and in time. This has actually made me double check my work because we send out a lot of things to all over Indiana and to Washington D.C. A lot of the stuff we send is time sensitive so if I messed up the address or shipped it wrongly the info wouldn’t make it to where it needs to be. There should be more events coming up that I hope to get involved with on the weekends like fundraising diners.