Get a Job: Karen Hicks

A political campaign operative extraordinaire explains why you should always suffer from “impersonator syndrome.”

By Ezra Klein, UCLA

Tony Blair never calls me on the red phone. Nor, come to think of it, does Howard Dean. When the DNC was scouring the country for folks able to lead their election field mobilization, I got nary a mention. Indeed, when prominent politicians are in trouble, they just about never put their political lives in my hands. Instead, they call for Karen Hicks (stat!), and let her take care of it. Which is why she’s this week’s subject here at Get a Job.

Ten years ago, Karen was your run-of-the-mill lefty: a politically-conscious environmental studies student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Summer came, and she decided to enter the non-profit world, signing up for a grunt-level position with the National Toxics Campaign. The job? Knocking on doors. Lots of them. In the years to come she’d be New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen’s political director, Howard Dean’s field director in New Hampshire, the DNC’s field director during the 2004 election, and a field consultant for Tony Blair and the Labour Party. Still, she remains adamant that the necessary skill set for all of her successes was found in that first job for the National Toxics Campaign, discovered during those long days spent splitting knuckles on stranger’s doorsteps. “If you can go up and ask a total stranger for a check and you’re successful,” she says, “then things that come after that, like raising money from foundations, are easy.”

Knocking on doors appealed to Karen, and college lost her for the next ten years. After spending some time working health policy for Jeanne Shaheen (“the best,” says Karen) she became the political director for Shaheen’s 2002 campaign. In her capacity as political director, she was charged with building alliances, working with local politicians, pursuing “earned” media (that would be paid media’s older, more virtuous cousin: basically, getting written up for doing things that are considered newsworthy) and generally navigating New Hampshire’s political environment for her boss.

Shaheen lost, but Karen’s intimate knowledge of New Hampshire’s electoral environment brought her to Howard Dean’s attention and his payroll a few months later. In January of 2003, she signed on to be the campaign’s New Hampshire field director. For Dean, the Granite State was a must-win. It shared a media market with his beloved Vermont and he was thus something of a hometown boy. Of course, the importance of the state was not, at the beginning, commensurate with the plushness of the working conditions. When Karen started, the New Hampshire field operation was her and two other folks operating out of a staffer’s girlfriend’s grandmother’s place.

As you well know, it got bigger. Way bigger. And Karen was there the whole time, guiding the New Hampshire operation from a three-member secret society meeting in some grandma’s living room to a massive movement absorbing volunteers from across the country. Unfortunately, Iowa preempted New Hampshire, at least this time around, and Kerry’s ephemeral (and, as it turned out, false) “electability” had elicited such a resounding win in Iowa that New Hampshire couldn’t help but codify their decision (Massachusetts, Kerry’s state, also shares a media market with New Hampshire).

But no sooner did the Granite State enthusiastically second Iowa’s choice than Kerry seconded Dean’s, bringing Karen on as a deputy field director. Due to the absurdities and loopholes of campaign finance law, field efforts are rarely run from within presidential campaigns; instead, they’re farmed out to party organizations. True to form, the DNC assumed the job, and brought Karen on as their national field director.

During the election, the DNC broke all its records for field organizing, a fact keenly noticed across the Atlantic. That’s why, when brainstorming ways to win a third term, Tony Blair’s Labour Party decided to bring Karen across the ocean to consult. When I spoke to her, she was still in London. Indeed, it was hard to miss her Transatlantic consulting, what with stories on her appearing in The New York Times and Washington Post.

So it all sounds fun, right? You’re the go-to gal for desperate politicians, you get to travel around the world advising campaigns, you lead a life in the horserace … but how do you get there? Karen says the most important step is to get in the field. She learned her craft knocking on doors and those hoping to succeed her should start prepping their knuckles. Obsessing over the perfect job, she says, is foolish. Simply get involved with something or someone you care about; the rest will come in time.

Then, once you’re happily ensconced in a job that matters to you, find someone brilliant and latch on. The craft of organizing is, in its ways, passed from person-to-person, and you’d be well-served to find someone worthwhile to mimic.

What won’t do you any good is playing it safe. Don’t stay in any job you don’t like – life’s too short. And don’t take any job you feel overly prepared for. Every position you enter should have you feeling a bit over your head. Karen calls it “impersonator syndrome”: the feeling that once the folks in charge realize your ignorance, it’ll be mere moments till security is called and you’re firmly escorted out of the building. Some call that paranoia. She gives it a much more positive spin. There’ll always be smarter people around to help you learn, and feeling scared makes you sharper.

Karen’s one of them. When looking to hire, she’s looking for creativity, smarts, the ability to work ungodly hard, and a desire to really learn. We can only assume she wants you under-prepared, or, rather, feeling under-prepared, for the position. Otherwise, why do it? So be afraid, very afraid. And then, follow Karen’s advice and 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.