Over the course of the past summer, I had the opportunity to work as an intern on State Senator Tony Hwang’s re-election campaign. When I began my work in May, I had just graduated from Fairfield University and punched my ticket to law school; an internship on a State Senate campaign seemed like an excellent opportunity to provide my resumé with some new depth.
While I was hopeful that my internship would open doors for me, I initially had relatively little hope that my work would be personally fulfilling. Having studied politics both in the classroom and the outside world over the past several years, I was just about ready to give up on it.
I realize that such an impression of politics might appear cynical, especially coming from a 22 year-old. But it’s important for older generations of Americans to remember that younger voters like me have not witnessed much, if any, collegiality in national politics over the past several decades. With the possible exception of the 2008 presidential election, many young voters have not been led to believe that the political process is truly a ticket to a brighter tomorrow and the next period of “Morning in America.”
You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I learned that my primary responsibility as an intern for the Hwang campaign would be to knock doors and survey people. In such a supposedly polarized political climate, this seemed an illogical choice for outreach to the residents of the 28th District. As far as I was concerned, there were hard ‘Yes’ voters, hard ‘No’ voters, and a few people in between. Why go after everyone without any distinction made toward party affiliation or past support?
Yet, as I began knocking doors for the campaign, I found that the political scene scarcely resembled the rancor of the national races. To be sure, many citizens of the 28th District expressed to me their dismay at the sorry state of the presidential campaign. But those conversations were absolutely dwarfed by the number of conversations I had about more pragmatic concerns: electric bills, taxes, grocery prices, road safety, and school redistricting, to name a few.
It turns out that, at least in our own little corner of Connecticut, the warmth and familiarity that once defined our American political system still holds true. There are still constituents from across the political spectrum who are willing to have honest-to-goodness discussions about how to improve everyday life. The system only needs more public servants who are willing to listen as Senator Hwang does.
That term, ‘public servant,’ sounds almost too quaint for our current political era. However, I can honestly say that it describes Tony to a tee. He warmly greets quite literally everyone he sees because he wants to be engaged and represent his community and constituents. He genuinely does it because he has an insatiable desire to know everyone whom he represents as their state senator and his availability to help as their governmental representative.
True representation, at any level, is based on mutual trust, understanding and accomplishments. In demonstrating that philosophy as a basis for his campaign, Senator Hwang has demonstrated those values and earned all three from me. It is why he remains in office as an independent minded Republican in an emotionally divisive and partisan label driven electoral process, that trends to be more bitter with each passing election.
This is not to say that every voter whom I encountered over the summer had nice things to say about the state of the district or the state of Connecticut politics—far from it. I saw all manner of constituents, from eager supporters to vehement critics to indifferent newcomers. Yet each interaction was so unique that I feel quite ashamed that I was once willing to reduce each of those Americans to mere numbers in a zero-sum game of party labels.
I’m proud to have worked with Senator Hwang not because we share the same political ideals of democracy and freedom or because he took the time to mentor me as an individual and my personal interests. Rather, I’m proud to have worked with him because of the consideration that he works to give to all individuals in his district just as he did for me as his campaign volunteer.
Tom Lane
Fairfield University
Class of 2024
