Every single candidate they worked for lost. The program is called Campaign Semester and students got credits for it.

Jason Song of the LA Times reported.

Occidental students confront a reality of political campaigns: defeat

The midterm elections were over. The 11 campaign workers from Occidental College returned to class. But first, they heard from a school reverend.

“You win some, you lose some,” Susan Young told the group. It’s perfectly OK, she said, to have trouble readjusting to college life or to feel out of place.

In what is believed to be the only college program of its kind, the undergraduates in the Campaign Semester course spent at least 2 1/2 months, often seven days a week, 12 hours a day, working on behalf of candidates in contested states.

None won.

Many were resoundingly defeated, although two students worked for the reelection campaign of Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who is in a runoff. All of the students worked for Democratic candidates; Republicans swept the mid-terms and took control of the House and Senate.

The results were the first for Occidental’s biannual program, in which students spend the beginning of a semester working in the field and then return to campus, studying campaign tactics and political theory, discussing their experiences and the results of the election.

In addition to talking about the finer points of voter engagement and campaign donations, the students also talk about the more unsavory aspects of democracy: negative ads, doors slammed in your face and what it’s like to live on pizza for weeks at a time. And, for this group, what it’s like to feel depressed and cry after your candidate loses.

For many, the process was an eye-opening experience.


 
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