While Busch distributes the signs inside the convention arena, Stephen R. Kempf '92 will be selling T-shirts outside. In business with his brothers, Kempf has ordered 1200 shirts in eight different variations on the "top ten" theme. He expects the biggest sellers to include shirts listing the "top ten reasons Republicans are losers" and the "top ten lies told by George Bush" (lie number one: "I am not a wimp.").

With the different people and the various jobs come varying degrees of idealistic and material interest in the convention.

Gore and Harmon say they are driven by nothing less than a heartfelt desire to improve America.

"I'm here for one simple reason: I love my country," Gore said when Clinton announced his choice for the vice-presidency.

Gore went on to say that he wants to be part of Clinton's efforts toward "getting the country moving in the right direction again" through "responsible change."

Harmon has a mission almost as high-flown. He said he sees the convention as an opportunity for showing people that politics can be positive. Politics, Harmon said, are "a way to really change things."

Ideas are also what moved Cooper to get involved in the convention. "I'm attracted to Clinton and I'm attracted to the issues he's talking about," Cooper said.

"I had to do something to get Bush out of here," said Cooper, a former president of College Democrats of America.

Less politically driven is Solomon, who said he is shepherding because he is "just looking for an excuse to hang around."

Solomon said he has "no ideological motives." What brought him to New York, he said, was an attraction to the "weird sort of excitement in the air."

And, as any economist will confirm, money can be a motivation. If they sell enough of their T-shirts, Kempf and his brothers stand to make a $9000 profit in the next four days. That's enough to lure Kempf temporarily from his regular job at Salomon Brothers ta Wall Street investment firm.

Ideology is not a factor for Kempf, either.

"It's just business," he said.