Anyone with any non-elective political experience?

[Del Tachi]

Please detail any non-elective political experience you may have had.  This includes things such as serving as a staffer, intern or aide to either a Congressperon, Senator, governor or state legislator.  Internships or employment with any executive agency is also noteworthy. If anyone has ever served in the White House that would be really cool!

I'll go first.

I recently served as a United States Senate page under Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) from September 2011 to January 2012.  All of the staffers I talked to would always comment on how lucky I was because I got to be on the floor everyday and see all 100 Senators on almost a daily basis.  A lot of the Senators are really cool and nice to the pages (Inhofe, Milkulski, Franken) while others are absolute d-bags (Kerry, McCain, Paul)--a guess spending your life in the shadow of failed presidential campaigns will leave one pretty sour.  Other cool Senators were Pryor, Ayotte, Collins, Thune, Coons and Cardin.  Also, Reid is has a much better sense of humor and is less awkward than McConnell.

Granted, I was a Republican page so I did not interact with Democratic Senators as much, but I had enough interaction with them to form opinions of them.  I got to see a few House members--like Kristi Noem, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Louise Slaughter, Deb Wass-Schultz, and Dennis Kuchinich.   

We also got to meet the Vice President, who is a much nicer guy than the President (got to meet him too).  Was on the House floor for the SOTU and I got to stand right behind Michele Bachmann, who had her fair share of comments. 

All in all, it was an awesome experience and nothing I ever do again will probably compare to it.  I hope they decide to keep the program for future generations and its something I'll for sure be pressuring my kids into doing!

Has anyone else ever served as a Page?  Or any other staffer-like position?

Please discuss... 

[Del Tachi]

That's really neat! I've done paging, but only on the state level. Almost all the one's I encounter there are very pleasant, though I have had a few experiences, both with Republicans and Democrats, that weren't as pleasant.

Other than that, I've done a lot of volunteer work and served as the county coordinator for a Congressional campaign, and am also on my town's election board. All of this pales in comparison to your cool experiences, though!

I might be paging for my State Legislature this summer.  Strange as it sounds, I'm actually excited about it.  While Jackson isn't as cool as DC, a lot more actually gets done at the state-level and the pages in Jackson are much busier.  The life of the Senate page is one of boredom, hours of Quorum Call interupted only by the occasional floor speech.