McCain campaign staff member recalls election with AP government class

LEARNING FROM AN INSIDER—Royal High School students Shelby Hunt, Brandon Moore, Zac Hickman and Patrick Stevenson flank guest speaker Owen Paun (middle) during Paun's visit to their AP government class last week. Paun, who is from Simi, worked as a campaign staffer for Arizona Sen. John McCain. Royal High School graduate Owen Paun spent more than a year as a campaign staff member for presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona).

Last Friday, the 28-year-old Paun visited teacher Brian Dennert's AP government class at his alma mater to share his experiences working and volunteering for the senator since September 2007. On Monday he returned to take questions from students.

Paun, who spoke before 1,200 people at the Iowa caucuses, showed pictures from campaign events and told the class about the challenges McCain's camp faced throughout the primaries and the presidential election.

Paun described the tactics the McCain campaign employed to make up for their initial lack of support and funds.

"When your candidate has no money, you need to come up with creative ways to get media coverage," he said.

During the Republican primary, Paun said, McCain's workers were successful in drawing the attention of the press to their candidate, but he felt campaign officials did not introduce vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin properly.

"It's important to get the narrative out early. They didn't define Sarah Palin early enough, so the media defined her instead," he said.

He told the class that the Alaskan governor was misrepresented by NBC's "Saturday Night Live" as well as by her widely publicized interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson.

In spite of those views and McCain's November loss, Paun called his experience working on the campaign a lesson in the power of the democratic process.

"It's very energizing to know that in America we have the power to influence and change the government," he said.

Paun worked on a variety of tasks for the campaign but eventually came to work primarily in foreign policy because of his expertise in Russia and Central Asia.

Now Paun is looking at new job opportunities. Working with the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute, organizations that promote democratic government around the world, are possibilities. He is also considering starting his own political consulting firm.

When asked what he thought of the presentation, student Dane Boudreau said, "I felt that in a 12thgrade AP government class, this information was especially relevant since many students might be considering careers in this area."

Boudreau also said that Paun's informal presentation style effectively conveyed what it's really like to work in a campaign.

Dennert said Paun is a personal friend.

"I am glad he was able to come speak to students about an insider's view of a presidential campaign," he said.

Ventura County Republican Party Chair Mike Osbourn and Democratic superdelegate Mary Ellen Early have previously spoken to Dennert's class about local and national politics.

Paun maintains a blog about Russian and American politics called Lex Libertas, which can be found at www.lexlibertas.com.

Writer Patrick Stevenson is a student in Dennert's class.