From the Western Star

Ohio may be at the epicenter of the general election, but its products — Ohio natives — are at the heart of the presidential primaries and caucuses that will decide voters’ options in November 2008.

In Iowa, Anne Filipic, 26, a Columbus native whose father works at Wright State University, is helping to lead the state’s grassroots effort for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

Elsewhere in the Hawkeye State, Caroline Merkel, 23, a Cincinnati native, is knocking on doors in Dubuque to convince voters to back Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton during Iowa’s first-in-the nation caucuses on Jan. 3.

Mike Dew, 30, a Lima native with 12 years of political experience, meanwhile, makes frequent trips with Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee. Dew’s responsibilities include planning for Thompson’s trips and making sure they run smoothly.

And Toledo native P.J. Wenzel, 25, coordinates support for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, in 11 states, including Michigan, a key early primary state.

That so many campaigns are populated by promising young Ohioans is of little surprise, said Wenzel .

“There are so many talented people that come out of Ohio,” he said.

Links to Ohio

Ohio has other links to the campaign as well, albeit not homegrown links. Jeff Sadosky, a Thompson spokesman, worked as a spokesman for Sen. Mike DeWine’s Senate office. Sadosky is a California native.

Similarly, Kevin Madden, the Ohio communications director for Bush-Cheney in 2004, is a spokesman for Romney. Madden is an upstate New Yorker, but his most recent job was as a spokesman for then-House Majority Leader John Boehner. Isaac Baker, a Clinton spokesman, worked as a spokesman for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign. And Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesman who hails from Chicago, served as a spokesman for now-Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, during his Senate race in 2006.

On the job

The jobs often mean long hours away from home. Dew expects to be traveling for his job during the holidays. Merkel, meanwhile, plans to have her parents spend Christmas with her in Dubuque. Both of her parents are Clinton backers, and Merkel hopes to enlist them in a little last-minute stumping for the former first lady.

Merkel has campaigned through more than six inches of snow, knocking on doors only to receive offers of hot cocoa from the voters she’s hoping to sway. One selling point she offers voters: She was so inspired by Clinton that she chose to move nine hours away from her family to help get her elected.

“I’m more or less the eyes and ears for the campaign out here in Dubuque,” she said. Filipic, meanwhile, may be spending all of her time in Iowa, but she’s not about to pander to University of Iowa graduates to garner votes. Her boss, Mitch Stewart, the caucus director for Obama in Iowa, said Filipic comes in on game days wearing her Ohio State Buckeyes football jersey.

“She corrects me daily that Ohio State University is ‘the’ Ohio State University,” he said.

Wenzel gets to stick a little closer to home. He covers 11 states as the Midwest Regional Political Director, including Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri, but his job keeps him based in Columbus.

Wenzel, 25, is a seasoned political veteran. In 2006, he served as political director for Republican Ken Blackwell’s gubernatorial campaign in

Ohio. Before that, he served as coalitions director at the state Republican party.

His current job has him working with state leaders to build grassroots support for Romney and making sure Romney is on the ballot, among other tasks.

The job, though, “really does change every week,” he said. “It’s hard to describe a traditional week.”

Dew began working for Thompson in September, when Thompson declared his candidacy. Rather than directly hire campaign staff to do advance work, Thompson contracted with Event Strategies, the company Dew works for.

Before that, Dew worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio in 2000 as a special projects director, coordinating between the political side of the campaign and the advance side of the campaign. In 2004, he was a full-time advance person for Mrs. Bush.

Constantly moving

Some weeks, Dew works as a trip director, accompanying Thompson to trips to New Hampshire and Iowa.

“We have a lot of moving parts,” he said. “It’s our job to make sure they’re all moving in the right direction – in the direction that the senator needs.”

He likens his job to that of a “traffic cop,” making sure everything is set up to run smoothly for Thompson when he travels. He laughs that his mother couldn’t describe his job, “even though I’ve done it for awhile.”

The job has its perks. Dew is based in Virginia, but last Friday, he traveled to Ohio for a fundraiser with Thompson. In Ohio, he met up with his family – his parents, both grandmas, an aunt, an uncle and three cousins in Columbus for dinner, at Eddie George’s 27 Grille on Ohio State’s campus, a Christmas visit of sorts.

“I don’t mind missing Christmas,” he said. “But spending the (OSU) national championships in Manchester, N.H.? That’s going to try my patience.”