Her experience running Dukakis' operation bolstered Estrich's scholarship, as well. Her newly acquired knowledge of, and experience with, election law has been an area of growth which she has been able to share directly with students in her class. "It made me a better teacher," she says.
Experience
Others agree that their campaign experience helped them on the Harvard job.
"Any experience which requires that you work from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. makes someone a very efficient worker," says Campion, the public liaison director at the Kennedy School. "A day at the Kennedy School which goes from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. begins to seem pretty easy."
From Labor Day through election day, Campion took a leave of absence from the Kennedy School to run Kitty Dukakis' operation.
Kitty Dukakis' unwavering dedication to her husband's electoral ambitions have left in indelible mark on Campion, she says.
"Kitty did real campaigning," Campion says, explaining that the governor's wife travelled to several key states each day to campaign on behalf of her husband. At the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta--during which time Campion ran Kitty Dukakis' entire convention operation--the prospective First Lady surprised many by meeting with delegates throughout most of the days, Campion says.
Most notable in Kitty Dukakis' performance throughout the campaign was a speech she gave on AIDS in San Francisco, in which she laid out new policy herself--the speech marked the first time the spouse of a candidate had done that.
"I think she broke a lot of ground by campaigning on her own--on the issues--and doing as much national press as possible," Campion says.
But while campaign war stories have now entered the nostalgic phase at Harvard, most agree that returning to the world of academia was a welcome change from the rough and tumble world of electoral politics.
"There aren't many places left in this society where everybody agrees that government is a good thing," Champion said when he returned to the school in February. "At the Kennedy School, almost everybody agrees it is."