Recent graduates and Harvard student willing to take time off are working across the country for this year’s presidential race.

For the past few months, students have served as employees for the official President George W. Bush and John F. Kerry campaigns, MTV’s Rock the Vote and Democratic interest group America Coming Together.

Michael B. Firestone ’05-’06, who is taking the semester off to work in the political department of Kerry’s Florida campaign, recruits veterans in central Florida to speak to other veterans about the Democratic presidential candidate.

“Although I didn’t think I would be working with veterans, now it’s something I’m passionate about,” said Firestone, former vice president of the HarvardCollege Democrats. “There are two million veterans in Florida, which is a very important voting group.”

On the other side of the country, Reuben Marine-Larena ’02-’04, is a regional director for America Coming Together in New Mexico. Former Vice President Al Gore ’69 won the state by 366 votes in 2000, a margin smaller than Florida’s.

“We are about voter registration,” said Marine-Larena, who expects to be sent to Iraq with the marine corps after the election. “We’re like the grassroots organizers but on steroids.”

Jennifer N. Hawkins ’04, a Texas native, has found her niche in the Bush administration.

“I wasn’t involved in politics on campus. My experience was that a lot of people were extreme and I am pretty moderate,” Hawkins said. “I didn’t find comfort zones with the Harvard College Democrats or the Harvard Republican Club.”

Now Hawkins is a policy events coordinator for the Bush administration, in charge of tracking down people who have been positively influenced by Bush’s policies.

Although she works at the campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., Hawkins frequently follows the president on his trips to swing states.

“He actually calls me Hawk,” Hawkins said. “It’s very similar to campus. [The president] has nicknames for everybody. That’s his style.”

Hawkins, an African-American, said that she enjoys her job but wishes other blacks would be more open-minded about the Bush administration.

“If you look at senate and congressional records you will see how many bills that have helped black people he has pushed through Congress,” Hawkins said.

“I found that impressive because, quite frankly, [the president] has no incentive to help blacks. He doesn’t do things for political reasons, he does them because they’re right.”

But Jacob A. Kramer ’06, who is taking the semester off to intern for the Kerry campaign in Florida, said that active Republican efforts to stop blacks from voting is a major legal issue there.