“This has sort of taken over my life at the moment,” Lauderdale said.

He said that HSHD, one of many campaign subgroups of the College Democrats, plans to generate student interest in the Dean for America campaign through trips to New Hampshire in addition to local events.

Gregory M. Schmidt ’06, an HSHD executive board member and the College Democrats’ campaigns director, said he believes that the New Hampshire primary is “the ideal form of democracy” because it encourages greater interaction between the candidates, with their student volunteers, and the general population.

According to Schmidt, the College Democrats will send students to New Hampshire throughout the Democratic primary season to campaign for whichever of the ten candidates they support.

Some have already made the journey. Speaking on his cell phone as he drove back to Cambridge after canvassing for John Kerry, Nicholas F. B. Smyth ’05, said he was confident of Kerry’s chances to win the Democratic nomination.

Smyth, who is president of Harvard Students for John Kerry and also a Crimson editor, said that his was the biggest presidential campaign group on campus with 252 subscribers to the group’s e-mail list.

Though the Harvard Republican Club has yet to begin active campaigning for President George W. Bush, spokesperson Mark T. Silvestri ’05 said that he was happy to see the extent of Democratic activism because it increases political awareness on campus.

The Republicans plan to campaign for Bush in New Hampshire before the November 2004 general election, according to Silvestri.