Planning began in earnest for the Road to the White House during the summer of 2015 -- hours on the phone and sending emails and in meetings to arrange the logistics for the course.
--Hotel. I was looking for an affordable and conveniently located hotel that includes breakfast and that has a conference room for our seminar meetings. In June hotels in Manchester were already completed booked and had already raised rates for the primary season. I was starting the get nervous that we were going to get priced out of this trip. After many calls, I finally found a place and have a block of rooms reserved for USFSP. (I am going to travel to NH for a planning trip in mid-September. I'll check it out and make it will meet our needs.)
--Vans. I was able to reach the vendor we have used in the past to reserve 2 15-passenger vans. These will be scarce GOTV weekend, and it's important to book these early.
-- Budget meetings with our College office regarding the course fees and course logistics.
--Internship placements! I started a draft of the Appendix for the syllabus that includes information on every candidate and campaign. (Students are expected to learn about all candidates and platforms before selecting their internship placement.) You would think that with the power of the internet that it would be easy to find all of the contact information. It was surprisingly difficult to find the contacts this early out. I had expected all of the campaigns to have NH headquarters at this point, but many were not set up yet. I had planned to use the summer to get organized for this course, but I ended up postponing my planning trip until mid-September to be sure I maximized my time in NH.
--Course Documents: Syllabus for the Seminar, Syllabus for the Internship, Itinerary for the trip to NH in Jan/Feb 2016. Even though this will be the 4th time that I have taught this quadrennial course, each time it feels like I am designing the course de novo.
Planning this course is a herculean task, but the opportunity to bring my students to New Hampshire to experience the first-in-the-nation primary is well worth all of the extra effort.
This blog will cover Dr. Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan's ROAD to the WHITE HOUSE 2016 class (that will study the history and politics of U.S. presidential campaigns). She and her students will travel to New Hampshire for an intensive 10-day internship leading up to the first-in-the-nation primary.
