Aaron Dauterman, who ran for Athens City Council in the fall, says the Ohio governor is “one of the most honest and genuine” politicians he has ever met.
While hoards of students were returning from winter break and settling back into the daily grind for Spring Semester, Aaron Dauterman was on the road, making the 14-hour drive to volunteer in New Hampshire for Ohio Gov. John Kasich's presidential campaign.
Dauterman, a senior studying communication and political science, has spent much of the past year interning for the Ohio Republican Party, making the drive between Athens and Columbus two days each week. Toward the end of last year, he was given the opportunity to travel to New Hampshire to volunteer with Kasich’s campaign, where he would spend his days making phone calls to supporters and knocking on the doors of voters across the Granite State.
“It was really neat getting to see the true ‘behind-the-scenes’ of a presidential campaign,” Dauterman said. “I’ve run my own city council campaign, helped out with a state representative campaign in 2014, but just seeing how everything works, and seeing how everything falls into place, it was the big leagues.”
Personal meals were the only expense for which Dauterman had to dig into his own pockets. The rest of the expenses, including transportation and lodging, were covered by the Kasich campaign.
“Aaron’s been doing a great job for us. He’s been very timely and professional,“ Ohio Republican Party Political Director Brenton Temple said. “I think it’s an especially exciting year in Ohio, and there’s always room for young people to get involved.”
Dauterman says the campaign recently rolled out its “phone from home” program, which allows volunteers to make routine phone calls to potential supporters from the familiar comfort of a smartphone app with no drives to New Hampshire needed. Depending on Kasich’s performance in the primaries, Dauterman hopes to involve members of the OU College Republicans in making calls for the campaign.
“He’s setting a great example,” OU College Republicans President Anna Lippincott said of Dauterman. “It’s great work experience. It’s great networking. It’s just really good to be passionate about something."
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Kasich’s performance in the early primaries hasn’t been level across the board. He placed second in New Hampshire, eighth in Iowa, and fifth in South Carolina on Saturday evening, out of the six Republican candidates remaining in the race.
Dauterman, however, is confident in the campaign’s momentum.
“The governor, right now, has about a 60 percent approval rating just as governor in the state, so there’s a lot of broad-based support,” Dauterman said. “And they’re trying to get (volunteers) out, not only to knock on doors for him, but just to give them real world experience of what the governor has been able to do for the state of Ohio.”
In a video posted to Kasich’s Facebook page, Dauterman can be seen as part of a crowd of young volunteers who gathered in Concord, New Hampshire, on Jan. 18 to welcome the governor. Seeing the support of college students, Dauterman said, seemed to nearly bring Kasich to tears.
“I’m sure you look at national stuff, and you see John Kasich and see the supporters he has in the room. There’s not a whole lot of the younger demographic that comes out for him,” Dauterman said. “Call me overzealous, or what you will, but I would like to be a part of a growing national youth movement behind the governor, especially if he does well in New Hampshire.”
This wasn’t the first time Dauterman had been able to meet with Kasich in person. During the 2014 campaign season, Dauterman said Kasich “slipped in the back door” of a Baker Center conference room in order to meet with a number of local Republicans, including Dauterman.
“He’s a very, very good guy. A very genuine guy,” Dauterman said of Kasich. “I’ve been helping out with campaigns and doing politics in Southeastern Ohio since my freshman year at Marietta, and you meet a lot of people that way. And by far, I think one of the most honest and genuine people that I’ve met, has actually been Governor Kasich.”
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