The Party Animals : Campaigns: Despite a likely low turnout of young voters, a committed group of college-age men and women is hard at work in politics.

Election day was less than three weeks away, and things seemed to be going well enough in the Dianne Feinstein for Governor campaign. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate and her entourage of staff, security, family and the press would arrive at this Encino home for another in a long series of campaign fund-raisers, and Mia Bernstein’s part in all this was simple, really.

The 23-year-old San Fernando Valley woman--a campaign intern and member of the Feinstein advance team--was mainly needed to bring the small public address system from her own house, just blocks away, before greeting the candidate at curbside. Bernstein, like other young, novice campaign workers spread throughout the state’s various political races, had found in her six weeks on the Feinstein staff that more experienced election strategists were counting on her.

This weekend luncheon would run flawlessly, even if Feinstein arrived a bit ahead of schedule, and ahead of some of the press. Bernstein could smile easily in a way she couldn’t have imagined early last month, when it was her high-pressure responsibility to gather a crowd of about 700 supporters for a post-debate rally in Burbank.

In spite of polls that reflect a consistently low turnout for voters between the ages of 18 and 24, Bernstein is part of a tight, committed group of college-age men and women working in politics for the first time. Their involvement ranges from the grass-roots busywork of hanging campaign placards and telephone solicitation to meaningful roles in the offices of candidates and political parties.

In the Valley, only Cal State Northridge and Glendale Community College can claim active campus Democratic and Republican clubs working in the local and statewide campaigns leading up to Tuesday’s election. But it’s actually the efforts of individual students from these and other local campuses such as Los Angeles Valley College and Pierce College that may be having the most direct and lasting impact on contemporary politics, say student organizers in both gubernatorial camps.

“When I came into the campaign, I was given a lot of responsibility, and that was amazing to me in the beginning,” Bernstein said, pausing briefly after the Encino event before driving down to the campaign’s Wilshire Boulevard offices. “I was in shock. I was so nervous the first time I met her.”

The presence of youthful campaign workers can offer a candidacy what the older pols describe as a more excited atmosphere in what otherwise might become a dry season of campaign rhetoric, charges and countercharges. “I think they bring an enthusiasm,” said George Gorton, campaign director for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Pete Wilson. “And they charge the candidate up like crazy. He walks in and they cheer and shout. The candidate really gets pumped up.”

Gorton’s experience with the youngest section of the electorate runs deeper than most of his fellow political consultants. In 1972, he worked in President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign as national college director. And it has been with his encouragement that the state Republican Party has embarked this year on a massive drive to recruit college and high school students into the election effort, hoping to capitalize on polls conducted by the Wilson campaign that revealed strong support for the Republican among young voters.

According to Stephanie Schroder, the party’s state youth director, more than 5,000 students have been organized for the Republican cause. It’s the first large-scale student outreach Gorton has seen since the 1974 race for governor between Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Houston Flournoy. He said that before this year’s effort, campaigns all but ignored the youth vote.

Gorton, 43, said he always believed that the young electorate was an untapped source of votes, even during the 1972 election, when organizing for a Republican candidate on radicalized college campuses was a daunting task.

“Back in those days, people really cultivated them,” he explained. “That was the first year that 18-year-olds had the right to vote.”

It was the prospect of helping to elect the state’s first female governor that attracted Laramy Blohm, 20, to volunteer at the Feinstein campaign headquarters last July. A psychology student at CSUN, Blohm began by coming in every day to help work the telephones, calling congressional offices across the state looking for more campaign volunteers. Three weeks later, she was offered a paid, part-time position as the office receptionist.

“For a 20-year-old, it’s not like an average job,” Blohm said. “It’s not like working at a tanning salon or something.”

Before now, Blohm’s interest in politics hadn’t reached any further than voting on Election Day. Her plan with the Feinstein campaign was originally to just get a taste of politics.

“My interest in government has been increasing every day,” said Blohm, who hopes to go to law school. “Like Mia, the more responsibilities I take on, and the more people that I meet, the more my interest expands. So now it would be a goal for me to work in the government.”

Danette Dugas was juggling phone calls again one afternoon, surrounded by the stately photographic portraits of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and pausing only to direct visitors through the plush Burbank offices of the California Republican Party. The 20-year-old Valley College business major had only been working there about four weeks, and already she was a paid member of the special events staff.

“Probably at first it seemed overwhelming,” she said, “but it’s a very comfortable atmosphere. It just takes a little getting used to.”

Work within the party offers students an inside look at the election process, while adding some job security that no campaign offers after Election Day. The office work can also carry more substance than the sign-hanging of typical campaigns, explained Dan Schnur, Republican Party communications director.

It was the job itself that first attracted Anna Blishak as a 17-year-old to the party three years ago--that and the close proximity of its headquarters to her high school. Her parents were longtime Republican voters, but an interest in politics developed only after she started to work for the party. And the intention of the Valley College business major to remain active with the party, regardless of where her career takes her, reflects what Gorton said is a tendency of young voters to follow indefinitely their earliest political experiences.

“I’d like to stay involved somehow, whether it’s volunteering or whatever,” Blishak said. “It’s been around me these past three years, and it’s part of my life now. I can’t imagine not being involved at all.”

During an election year, much of the political excitement and attention inevitably focuses on the individual candidates, leaving the party to work more behind the scenes. But David Knatcal, a 22-year-old CSUN political science major who has worked in the Republicans’ communications department the last 15 months, said he feels connected with all levels of the election.

“I much prefer it,” Knatcal said. “It gives you such a broad view of everything. You’re involved in, conceivably, every race. Being the California Republican Party, we’re in touch with the whole state. There are certain advantages to being focused on one campaign, but I think I’m learning a lot more here.”

On Valley campuses, only a handful of student clubs representing Democrats or Republicans are active this election year. Knatcal, a member of the CSUN Republican group a few years ago, said his commitment had grown beyond the club by the time he volunteered at the Burbank party office.

For this election at least, it appears that the clubs are designed more to educate their members than to do any meaningful campaigning for the various party candidates.

“I’d say people join the club just to get a general idea of the Republican Party,” explained Dave Louden, 20, president of the Republican club at Glendale College. The state’s 28 ballot propositions, he said, “are so long and involved a lot of people aren’t quite sure how the party stands on them, what they mean.”

The Republican club at CSUN began having regular meetings again only last month, after at least a year of inactivity. And the school’s young Democratic organization was able only to get its members out to campaign for the party last weekend. Both club rosters list about two dozen members, although it is usually a core of about 10 that regularly participates in group activities.

“We’ve kind of missed the boat, unfortunately, at least at this point with the gubernatorial and state assembly,” admitted Doug Winger, 21, vice president of the CSUN Republican group. “But in the next year or two, we’ve got quite a few campaigns coming up. And personally, I would like to get more involved.”

The CSUN Democrats were successful in bringing former Gov. Jerry Brown, now state party leader, to speak on the campus in early October. Club president David Weiss said the group was also working to get students living away from home to vote by mail.

Weiss, a 20-year-old political science major, has worked beyond the confines of his club as the only college-age volunteer for Irene Allert, Democratic candidate for the 38th Assembly District. At a recent Wednesday afternoon meeting of the club, he said he was even happy to see his rivals in the CSUN Republicans organizing again.

“I’m actually glad that they are, because I think it’s important that students have that option,” Weiss said. “It makes me angry when students aren’t involved and they don’t care about the political process. And I’d rather see them, as much as I hate to say this, active in the Republican Party than nothing at all.”

To observers, a career in politics may have seemed an obvious path for Mia Bernstein, but she said she was slow to realize it herself. Her mother is Sandy Miller, longtime chief of staff for state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana). As a toddler, young Mia often accompanied her mother to political functions. Still, Bernstein did not immediately choose political science as her major at UC Santa Barbara, and the initial idea to join the Feinstein campaign as an intern started as a suggestion from her mother.

“Even though I was always surrounded by politics, I voted, but never got into it until now,” Bernstein said, sitting in a Wilshire Boulevard office surrounded by signs and posters of her candidate. “I always understood it, but it was something that was out there, not part of me.

“The stuff that we studied was international relations and history, like what happened during the Depression. And except for a couple of classes in public policy, I haven’t had any actual ‘This is what’s happening today.’ I think I’m learning more here than I ever would in school. Absolutely.”