<p>I hope to have a career as a political consultant. I figure I need connections to get into the field so I hope to find a school where I will be able to be very politically active and hopefully find some sort of internship with either a political consulting firm or, preferably, a politician. I realized that most of my schools are not exactly in the most politically active areas. </p>
<p>Can you give me some colleges to think about? I have a few conditions I would like colleges to meet.
1. I want a school in the Southeast, Northeast, or Texas. Preferably the South. This is a must-have.
2. I want a small-medium school. Ideally between 3000 and 8000.
3. I would prefer a liberal arts college.
4. I want a college with a good academic reputation. </p>
<p>Right now, the colleges I'm considering are
Brown
Dartmouth
Davidson
Duke
Furman
Rice
Wake Forest
Washington and Lee
William and Mary
Are any of these good for politics?</p>
<p>It’s a worthy ambition but you should be aware that very few people manage to develop full-time careers as political consultants. You’re absolutely right that you “need connections” but to develop connections you need demonstrated skills, and to develop skills you need experience, talent, and a taste for hard work. That all comes from working on campaigns, not from college. What are you doing this summer and fall? There’s a hotly contested Presidential race, plus competitive Senate and House races in many states/districts. You don’t need a formal internship and you certainly don’t need to wait until you’re in college; just show up at the campaign office of a candidate you like in a contested race and volunteer, and they’ll put you to work. It will probably be pretty menial grunt work at first, not sexy and not glamorous, but if you work hard and do a good job and show that you’re dedicated and talented and responsible and trustworthy, the odds are good that you’ll move up pretty fast and become known to others on that campaign, and you’ll be sought out in future campaigns. In a hotly contested race, sky’s the limit as to how far and how fast you can rise, because a well-run and closely contested campaign is going to use every drop of energy it can get out of its volunteers, and if you show you’re capable of taking on responsibility and running with it, they’ll hand it to you. In short, start building your skills, your campaign resume, and your network now; the best place to start is in your own backyard. </p>
<p>But be careful to pick a competitive race to cut our teeth; most legislative races at both the national and state level are not competitive, with the incumbent running opposed or virtually so. Those campaigns tend to be lazy, unimaginative, and uninspired, and they neither expect much nor get much in the way of effort from either paid staff or volunteers, and you’ll take away the wrong lessons. The most valuable people in politics are those who learn how to win difficult, closely contested elections, but win or lose in your first time around the block, you’ll learn valuable skills and gain valuable experience and contacts by fighting the good fight in a contested race.</p>
<p>As for colleges, I don’t have any specific recommendations, but I’d suggest a couple of things. First, there’s something to be said for attending college in a place that has closely contested elections, i.e., in a “purple” state (NH, NC, VA) as opposed to a deep blue (RI) or a deep red (SC, TX) one. It’s pretty much guaranteed that during your time in college you’ll have an opportunity to get involved in a closely contested gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race in any of the aforementioned purple states, and probably one or more close House races as well. Second, I wouldn’t worry too much about how politically active the campus already is. In fact, if there’s already well-oiled student political machinery in place, it may be harder to prove yourself. But if you’re a real go-getter, you (and a handful of like-minded people you round up) can make a huge difference in registering students to vote, building a student campaign volunteer effort, and getting your campus to the polls. (You don’t mention political affiliation, but in most cases this sort of student effort favors Democrats over Republicans, and almost invariably, Democratic candidates in closely contested races will hugely appreciate the impact this kind of organizing can have; Republican candidates may prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, or support more narrowly targeted efforts to identify and energize Republican-leaning students without stirring up the campus liberals). Paid jobs come much later, after you’ve learned all the skills it takes to actually manage a campaign. </p>
<p>Beyond that, successful political consultants come from many different educational backgrounds. President Obama’s top political adviser and messaging guru, David Axelrod, began by selling buttons for Bobby Kennedy as a 13-year-old, then went on to study political science at the University of Chicago, writing for the campus newspaper and going on to become a full-time journalist and political columnist for the Chicago Tribune before getting back into political campaigns. Obama’s 2008 campaign manager (currently a top political adviser to the President) David Plouffe dropped out of the University of Delaware to run Sen. Tom Harkin’s 1990 re-election campaign. Plouffe ultimately did graduate UDel, but not until many years later. James Carville attended LSU both for undergrad and law school and was a practicing lawyer before getting involved in politics. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 strategist, Mark Penn, graduated in political science from Harvard and formed his political consulting and market research firm, Penn and Schoen, while he and his business partner and roommate Doug Schoen were still in college.</p>
<p>On the Republican side, Carville’s wife, the Republican political strategist Mary Matalin, graduated from Western Illinois University and cut her political teeth in an Illinois U.S. Senate race. Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, operations director for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, is another UDel dropout. George W. Bush’s political guru, Karl Rove, is a University of Utah dropout who got involved in politics while still in HS. Pollster and strategist Whit Ayres graduated from Davidson with a degree in political science and went on to earn a Ph.D. in that field from UNC Chapel Hill. </p>
<p>Bottom line, you don’t need to attend an elite university to rise to the top of the heap in political consulting; you need smarts, skills, energy, hard work, and being in the right place at the right time. On the other hand, once you actually get your feet wet, you may discover that you actually don’t like the work. Many people imagine themselves as top political consultants and media pundits; very few have the talent or the stomach for what it takes to actually get there. So I’d say go for the best college you can get into that is also a good “fit,” politics aside. Who knows, you may end up doing something completely different. But at the end of the day, where you go to school, or even what you study, won’t have all that much to do with how far you go in politics.</p>