Others, faced with graduation and entry into the "real world," said they joined campaigns directly after college in an effort to delay the inevitable.

Still others, began their political careers by involving themselves with their student government in high school or by becoming politically active at an even earlier age.

"I was raised in a traditional family in West Virginia. My father was a small business owner and my mother was a school teacher," said Dee Stewart, National Youth Director of the Phil Gramm for President campaign. "From my father's business, I learned about the burden of federal regulations."

Stewart, a 1995 graduate of Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., said he and other people his age were attracted to the Republican Party by former President Ronald Reagan and his conservative economic and social policies.

"You saw a lot of young people here tonight," Stewart, 22, said as the night was winding down. "The charisma of Ronald Reagan attracted thousands to the Republican Party and [young people] stayed with the Republican Party because they liked the substance of what he was saying."

Stewart said that before coming to the Gramm campaign he was the North Carolina youth director for the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign and the chair of the state's College Republicans.

Like Mayberry, he said he is interested in the affect politicians can have on the lives of everyday citizens.

"While I am young and flexible, this is how I think I can make a difference," Stewart said. "Politics takes a beating as a profession, but it is the only profession where you can make a difference in the lives of so many people."

A worker on the Pat Buchanan for President Campaign, Sean C. McCabe said his brother's race for state representative at the precocious age of 18, attracted him to campaign life when he was just 14.

McCabe is now office manager and New Hampshire volunteer coordinator for the Pat Buchanan for President campaign.

He said he is well suited to the nature of political life. McCabe, 25, is a graduate of Stonehill College, and worked in 1994 on John R. Lakian's failed attempt against Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56 (D-Mass).

"Campaigns are great work if you are organized. If you are not, don't even bother getting in politics," McCabe said. "If you lose a phone number and do not call someone back, you get them upset and they in turn will tell a friend and now you have ten people angry at you."

McCabe, who described politics as an "addiction," said he was attracted to Buchanan while he was growing up, because he liked the television commentator's enthusiasm and positions on critical issues.

"I have been watching Pat since I was a kid and I loved his excitement, his moral values and his integrity," McCabe said. "Even the people who hate Pat say 'at least he'll tell you the same thing, he doesn't pander.'"

On the Road