Aipac Trains Activist Students in Running Political Campaigns

Keith Halverstam spent last Tuesday wandering around Washington with video camera working on a campaign ad for congressional candidate Dennis Martin, a Repubician from Massachusetts.

Halverstam, 22, was one of 40 politically active college students who descended on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s headquarters here to get hands-on experience in running the campaigns of the future.

Halverstam and his campaign team were given background on the fictitious Martin, and then set out to create a winning campaign.

“It was a major educational opportunity,” Halverstam said. The senior at Washington University in St. Louis said he plans to enter the political scene in time for the fast-approaching 1996 elections, and AIPAC’s program prepared him for that.

“The main thing is the program really did take pro-Israel activists and make them prepare and educated for the 1996 campaign,” he said.

“That’s important because the people rising to the top of the campaigns will be pro-Israel activists,” he added.

The American Israel Education Foundation, AIPAC’s educational arm, sponsored the four day Campaign Training Institute, the first such program at the pro- Israel lobby

Students paid a $100 registration fee, plus their own transportation. Travel subsidies were available for those who needed them, said Rachel Weinberg, AIPAC’s leadership director.

The students worked in teams and planned a full campaign strategy for their fictitious candidates. They wrote field plans and fund-raising proposals, in additional to the television commercials. Instructors, who included AIPAC officials and leaders in the campaigns field, evaluated the students’ efforts.

The students also learned about polling, the media’s role in campaigns and how to build resumes. They dined with two congressmen, Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.) and Rep. Peter Deutsh (D-Fla.)

Northwestern University Senior Mary-Jo Lipman, 21, said she like the program’s interactive style: “They laid out what needed to be done, and then let you do it.”

The students were chosen for the program based on their political involvement, their leadership abilities and their pro-Israel activism, AIPAC spokeswoman Toby Dershowitz said.

“It’s amazing how politically active they are at such a young age,” Dershowitz said. Many of the students already had been involved with AIPAC, she added.

They came from across the country, some from as far away as California, Oklahoma and Texas.

Organizers said where pleased with the program, which may become and annual event.

“It was interesting to hear them talk,” AIPAC’s Weinberg said. “In three days, they went from talking about campaigns like lay people to sounding like political consultants who had been in the business for years.”