And some days the campaign's most important decision is not whether to issue a press release or run an attack ad, but where to go when there is no fast food for miles--a situation all too common in predominantly rural New Hampshire.

"When we go up to the North Country, they don't have any McDonald's anywhere. You go up there hoping to get some good food," McCabe said. "But you just learn to live on what they have around."

Lonesome Trip to the Top

Not only do workers diets suffer while they are on the campaign trail, but their personal lives do as well.

While many of their friends hang out at a bar on a Saturday night, many said they are frequently stuck in some office in some town in New Hampshire planning next week's schedule, while overhearing the constant whir of the nearby fax machine.

"You give up a lot of your personal life," Mayberry said with a sigh. "You get home at 11 p.m. one night and find out that you missed your mother's birthday...Friends soon begin to drift away."

And then as if it to prove his point, Mayberry took a pager from his back pocket and placed it on the table.

"It's with me 24 hours a day, I go out to a restaurant, it's with me, I go out to a bar and it's with me," he said.

Mayberry added. "And now that I am working on this campaign. I just can't get drunk one night and go stumbling down the street, because I represent Lamar Alexander now. It's like I am a pseudo-candidate."

McCabe advised any Harvard student interested in working on a political race, that his or her personal life will be easily consumed by the vast commitments of the campaign.

"When you sign on to a campaign, you commit to working on the campaign until its over," McCabe said. "I have given a lot of my personal life, I have to travel to the North Country tomorrow and miss my father's memorial mass."

And romantic relationships? Forget them, campaign workers said There is too much travel, too much uncertainty, too low a salary and too many hours at the office for a normal relationship to work out.

"It is really tough to have a relationship during a campaign," Prats said. "I had one back in '92 and our relationship was not broken up, but strained because of the campaign."

Prats said he learned from his experience and now warns friends who are interested in working on a campaign of the dangers of mixing a relationship and a political race.

"Anyone who is in a relationship and wants to get involved in a campaign, I sit them down and tell them, 'Make sure you call, never forget birthdays, never forget anniversaries...," Prats said.