Scott spends summer calling for Giuliani
Arielle Burstein '10
Issue date: 2/13/08 Section: Features
Katie Scott '09, member of the Wheaton Conservatives, spent this past July and August working for former New York City Mayor and Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. She made some 250 calls a day to register Republican voters in New Hampshire and Iowa.
Scott enjoyed this seemingly tedious phone banking for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Campaign. The self-professed "political dork" described her internship as a "civic duty" and was fascinated by the range of Americans that answered their phones every day.
As a Political Science major with a concentration in Domestic American Politics, Scott was no stranger to political internships. However, interning for Giuliani proved to be a difficult job for her to wrangle. After pushing her resumé unsuccessfully several times, she finally got an opportunity through a local Republican group "The Bedford Town Republicans." Scott chose Giuliani based on his "moderate, wide national appeal" and convenient New York City campaign headquarters.
She explained that the interns read from a script during the calls and recited from memory the introduction and campaign slogan. Scott explained that 80 percent of the time no one picked up, and she ended up delivering her cheerful campaign message to a machine. "I tried to make it sound human," she said of her repetitious, scripted conversations.
When she did get a person on the phone, she would ask for them to rank three campaign issues, in order of political importance. The three options were social, economic, and safety issues, safety being a more comprehensive way of including national security. Scott assessed the statistics of her phone banking with a political eye, taking note of the political ranking system, the age range, as well as the family situations of the voters.
Scott mentioned that she and her fellow interns would occasionally get sent up to the "storm center", or campaign headquarters to deliver mail, organize, and copy for fundraising.
Overall, Scott said she enjoyed being among many like-minded interns who shared her passion for politics.
Scott enjoyed this seemingly tedious phone banking for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Campaign. The self-professed "political dork" described her internship as a "civic duty" and was fascinated by the range of Americans that answered their phones every day.
As a Political Science major with a concentration in Domestic American Politics, Scott was no stranger to political internships. However, interning for Giuliani proved to be a difficult job for her to wrangle. After pushing her resumé unsuccessfully several times, she finally got an opportunity through a local Republican group "The Bedford Town Republicans." Scott chose Giuliani based on his "moderate, wide national appeal" and convenient New York City campaign headquarters.
She explained that the interns read from a script during the calls and recited from memory the introduction and campaign slogan. Scott explained that 80 percent of the time no one picked up, and she ended up delivering her cheerful campaign message to a machine. "I tried to make it sound human," she said of her repetitious, scripted conversations.
When she did get a person on the phone, she would ask for them to rank three campaign issues, in order of political importance. The three options were social, economic, and safety issues, safety being a more comprehensive way of including national security. Scott assessed the statistics of her phone banking with a political eye, taking note of the political ranking system, the age range, as well as the family situations of the voters.
Scott mentioned that she and her fellow interns would occasionally get sent up to the "storm center", or campaign headquarters to deliver mail, organize, and copy for fundraising.
Overall, Scott said she enjoyed being among many like-minded interns who shared her passion for politics.
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