CORRECTION APPENDED

Last New Year’s Eve, Steven E. Johnston ’09 was on the trail with John McCain’s campaign, driving a van for members of the press to drop in at various parties where the senator was speaking. When he got back into his vehicle after a dinner stop, his boss told him Johnston was going to be driving McCain himself.

“Needless to say, I did drive very carefully,” Johnston said.

Since March 2007, the Mather House government concentrator has worked part time for the McCain campaign during the year and full time over the summer. Johnston also shoots and edits YouTube campaign ads, manages McCain’s YouTube channel, and serves as a state co-chair for the Massachusetts chapter of Youth for McCain. [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

On weekends, Johnston carts staff and press to events, sometimes getting back just in time to rush to class.

At the Republican National Convention he wrote remarks for Laura Bush and Cindy McCain, shot ad footage, and helped make vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s biography video.

Johnston has worked on campaigns since he was in middle school, but he said his fascination with politics began much earlier. Drawn to politics since he was five or six, Johnston said he remembers looking at pictures in Newsweek and asking his parents what was going on.

Though his family is not very political, Johnston said, they always encouraged his interest. In 2000, Johnston and his father traveled to Phoenix, Ariz. to volunteer for McCain’s last presidential campaign.

“It was mostly mailings,” Johnston said, “stuffing envelopes, sealing them, nothing really complicated—something a 13-year-old could be trusted with.”

By the time Johnston started college, he knew he wanted to work for the Arizona senator if he ran again.

During this time, his father’s health was failing, motivating Johnston to stay in college to graduate on time rather than taking time off to work for the campaign.

In August, just before Johnston was scheduled to travel to the Republican National Convention, he received word while shooting “Sportsmen for McCain” ads in Tennessee that his father had gone into cardiac arrest.

Johnston immediately came home to his family near Boston, but his father had already passed away.

“I was not thinking about going back to the campaign, not thinking about going to the convention,” he said, but his mother and others urged him to attend the convention.

In the final days before the election, Johnston will continue to work with Youth for McCain and on YouTube projects, heading to Washington, D.C. tomorrow. He will spend election night either in the nation’s capital or in Phoenix.

For Johnston, working on campaigns has been a rewarding experience not only because of the things he has done but also for the people he has met.

Johnston has spoken with McCain several times and describes him as “down to earth.”

“Down to earth” also happens to be how Jay Friarson—the driver of the Straight Talk Express bus, McCain’s campaign vehicle—describes Johnston. Friarson, who calls Johnston his “Harvard cat,” said he likes working with him.

“The best part about him, besides his smile,” Friarson said, “is his personality.”

—Staff writer Chelsea L. Shover can be reached at clshover@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION

Because of a reporting error, the Nov. 2 story, "Driving Senator McCain," stated that a student shot and edited YouTube campaign ads for John McCain. In fact, the student said that his duties were confined to assisting the consultants who produce the ads.