PolitickerNV Profile: David Mason

David Mason, campaign manager of Jill Derby for CongressLAS VEGAS-Every Monday, PolitickerNV.com profiles one of the staffers and consultants who work so hard to get these guys and gals elected and us something to write about. Today's subject: David Mason, campaign manager for Jill Derby for Congress.

Representing a new generation of political operatives is David Mason, 26, newly hired campaign manager for Jill Derby's second attempt at winning the 2nd Congressional District seat now held by Republican Dean Heller. A suburban Bostonian by birth, Mason comes to CD2 having already helped to engineer one second-time win and hopes to make it a second here.

"I got the bug in 2000 when I was volunteering for the Gore campaign," said Mason. "I come from the school of campaigning that has seen Democrats get the short end of the stick for years and it's exciting for me to get out there and do the hard work."

Mason, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2005 with a double degree in political science and German, found his calling with the UMass College Democrats, where he made regular trips to New Hampshire to volunteer while still just a freshman.

"It was an incredible opportunity having a swing-state, albeit a small one, so nearby," said Mason. "We would drive up every weekend for three months straight and played a little hooky on Election Day."

Mason's volunteer work also included a 2002 internship for Robert Reich's failed effort to win the Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial primary, "a few weeks" of work in South Dakota for Sen. Tim Johnson's first reelection campaign and statewide Massachusetts canvassing work during the 2004 election.

"We had a great time [in South Dakota]," said Mason. "A couple hundred students showed up and we slept on a YMCA floor because there were so many of us. We knocked on more doors than actually wound up being the margin of victory. It was the resurgence of the college Democrats."

"South Dakotans are a lot like Nevadans, they're real nice folk. We were canvassing during the summer so it was quite hot and I had a few folks tell me ‘we're conservative Republicans and we won't be voting for Mr. Johnson, but you look hot, come in for a drink.'"

Upon graduation, Mason went to work as finance director for Pat Jehlen's state senate campaign in Massachusetts, a job that he got by answering a Craig's List advertisement. Mason discovered that he enjoyed the grind of fundraising by finding a personal connection with his candidate and the donors.

"When you truly believe in a candidate, working fourteen-hour days and doing data entry doesn't hurt so bad," said Mason. "Finding folks who are willing to make that $5 investment, the grandmother who takes $5 out of her fixed income and makes that investment in a campaign because she believes in it; that matters to me."

Between major campaign cycles, Mason kept busy on the city and local levels of politics, working first for Boston city councilman Felix Arroyo, then for Jarrett Barrios' aborted run for district attorney of Middlesex County. When Barrios dropped out of the race for family reasons, Mason moved to New Hampshire and began working for now-Congressman Paul Hodes in his 2006 campaign for congress, a race that Mason hopes will parallel his current occupation.

"Hodes, interestingly enough, was running for the second time as well; he had been defeated by [former Republican Congressman Charlie] Bass in 2004," said Mason. "There are remarkable similarities between New Hampshire voters and Nevadans. There's a strong independent streak. It's not the kneejerk partisanship you see in a lot of other places."

"One of the things that you learn early in New Hampshire that carries through all the work you do in politics is the absolute requirement to really understand that voters are people. I think that is lost in a lot of major marketed campaigns. D.C.-centric campaigns are not focused on the people that are voting. These are people that are suffering from job losses, economic downturns, the cost of gas."

After Hodes' success in 2006, Mason signed on as "campaign coordinator" to Steve Marchand's bid for the U.S. Senate, a race that was cut short when former N.H. Gov. Jeanne Shaheen entered the race in September 2007.

"It's the nature of the business," said Mason. "This is not an industry where steady work is guaranteed and that's part of why I like it, frankly."

Mason worked short-term jobs for several months before the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee passed his resume on to Derby.

"We got along famously," said Mason. "I've worked for a lot of different people and seen a lot of different candidate styles and she is by far the easiest candidate to work for I've dealt with."

Mason believes that Derby's prospects are strong this year, and can quickly rattle off a list of Heller's votes he hopes to highlight. Although the odds are longer than with Hodes, today this son of a Libertarian father and Democratic mother (both members of organized labor) hopes to repeat the success he's seen in New Hampshire and pull off another upset second-time win.