Get a Job: Liz Drew

From sitting on a milk crate in Chicago to working for Senator Obama in Washington.

By Ezra Klein, UCLA

This edition of Get a Job will begin with a simple question, a brief query that should establish whether Liz Drew’s occupation is cooler than yours: Has Barack Obama ever brought you a cake with a picture of yourself on it, then proceeded to lead the room in a vigorous rendition of Happy Birthday? No? Well then, maybe you could be doing better.

Liz Drew is 23. She hails from Chicago, graduated from Brown, and is a legislative correspondent for Senator Barack Obama. She escaped from college about two years ago, though escape may not be the best term; she was more granted an honorable discharge. Brown, after all, hardly fought hard to keep her on its hallowed grounds during her official tenure there. Rather, her time at the university included a junior year abroad in China and a stint in Ecuador, all en route to a major in Development Studies.

But the international woman of mystery thing gets tiresome, not to mention expensive, so upon graduation she called up the campaign offices of a then little-known Illinois state senator with a funny name and asked if she could work for free. At the time, Barack Obama’s staff was tiny and his campaign offices were too small for her to be given a seat. But, if she was cool with standing, she could indeed sign on for no pay. (Her first seat in the office was a milk crate.) And so we come to lesson one of Liz Drew’s ascent: enter early and hope for a promotion. Not yours, necessarily, but someone else’s. In her case, it was the Deputy Finance Director who became Outreach Coordinator, and Liz was crowned the new Deputy Finance Director in short order after her arrival where she went from handling crumpled twenties to handling donations with several more zeroes attached.

Liz Drew’s birthday cake, courtesy of Senator Barack Obama.

As Liz’s tenure as Deputy Finance Director closed, she was given a new position as Legislative Correspondent. And what does that entail? “ My main duties involve responding to constituent mail and doing research on different issues, as well as meeting with interest groups about the areas I cover. I’m handling foreign relations and abortion issues, and since Senator Obama is on the Foreign Relations Committee, I’ve had the opportunity to prepare briefings for and attend a number of committee hearings, which has been really amazing.” Considering the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been handling Rice and Bolton lately, that would put her and her briefings at the epicenter of Washington’s non-Social Security wars. Not too shabby.

As for constituent mail, the other portion of her position, it nicely dovetails with her research and briefing duties. “The kind of mail we respond to from DC involves specific policy questions, concerns or suggestions. We have five LCs (legislative correspondents, like me) that handle that type of mail, and we each cover different issue areas.” As she notes, that can be more crucial than it sounds. Many an upwardly mobile politician has found his national ambitions derailed by an inattention or perceived indifference to local issues. Many a successful giant-killer – Rick Santorum’s upset victory over Harris Wofford springs to mind – owe their triumph to a relentless campaign against their opponent’s apparent affinity for Washington insiders and detachment from his home state, and many an ambitious Senator – Hillary Clinton fits neatly here – have covered their flank with a relentless, even obsessive focus on constituent issues.

But that’s part of the appeal in working your way up the ladder in a senator’s office – you become a jack-of-all-trades, boasting bits and pieces of experience in a multitude of areas. From working under campaign conditions and handling the flow of donations and expenses, to preparing Obama for hearings to researching issues to dealing with constituents, Liz can honestly claim a background that cuts through most every department in a politician’s office. For her, that’s been a highlight, not to mention a helluva resume addition. “I definitely think that all of the skills I learned on the campaign will be so useful in anything else I want to do.”

That sort of round-the-world experience only comes, however, if you jump onboard early. As a campaign grows, maturing from a faceless primary effort to a party frontrunner to a general election juggernaut and, finally, settling down into a legislative operation, it imposes different demands on those dedicated to managing its lifecycle. Where money began as the operative concern, it soon takes a backseat to the needs of a crack field organization, which soon cedes ground to skillful media management, and that to staff assembly, and that to daily candidate prep, and on and on. And while the process rarely achieves the velocity that Obama’s effort did – your candidate is probably not going to give the keynote speech at the party’s quadrennial convention and become the party’s brightest hope – it always requires you to evolve right along with the campaign. So when looking for a candidate to call up, don’t always run to the likeliest winner with the most evolved staff, sometimes the cramped, disorganized offices will give you the most room to learn, grow, and take on some real responsibility.

As for the traditional bit of wisdom we ask our interviewees to dole out? Well, Liz’s left me tired just thinking about it: “[I]f you have an opportunity to work harder than you’ve ever worked before for someone or something you really believe in—take it. Wherever it may lead you.” You heard the lady. Start early, work your fingers to the bone, and follow your path. Now go get a job.

Ezra Klein is a Junior at UCLA. He does have a blog, it’s at http://ezraklein.typepad.com. He does not work for the school newspaper. Which leaves him time to respond to your e-mails: ezrak@ucla.edu. Who do you want to see profiled in Get a Job? Drop him an email and let him know.