Volunteer Profiles

Tera Jasprem

North Carolina Action Team Leader

Interview by Tomasz Maciak

It was her first experience with canvassing, going to rallies, being around people who were fired up with optimism. Other times people talk about politics, it can be very pessimistic. Tera found the campaign to be a healthy environment.

During the 2020 presidential primary, Tera was excited by the field of candidates, how the Democratic platform was evolving, and how candidates were trying to improve outreach. She found a dispersed community of people organizing online, and she began phone banking. Over the summer and up to the general election, she phone banked for about a dozen different candidates.

“There's so much that doesn't get through, so it seems that nothing happens in Congress or politics. But there's more funding for school lunches—that's not necessarily going to make headlines, but it's making a difference for millions of families whose kids have healthier breakfasts and lunches. That example always stuck with me.”

Tera is now focusing on voter turnout, which goes along with Crimson Goes Blue’s work on voter suppression. She sees a link between her experience teaching yoga and skiing to beginners and her work in politics: she is guiding non-voters, bringing them into greater engagement and sharing her passion, hoping that it rubs off on them. "Believing that your vote counts is a novel idea for some people. They don't believe it until you point out, 'This is a policy that has affected you.'"

"I find that the primary is the most exciting time to get involved in politics because that's when you see such a diversity of candidates. When you're involved with a primary, there's a greater likelihood that you find someone who really speaks to you, who you can be really passionate about, who represents you. It might take a few cycles before that person gets elected, but it's a time for discovery, when beginners in politics can find that there's a place for them in the political landscape.

North Carolina will have one of the most important Senate races in 2022. Tera is excited to involve CGBers in registering voters and knocking on doors.

Voter Protection Action Team Leader

Interview by Tomasz Maciak

Dinah is passionate about trying to understand what's valuable and unique about the United States—and in particular, our democracy. "I'm very concerned about gerrymandering, and I think it's so important that we get Congress to pass serious voting rights legislation. It will be very difficult for us to beat back the authoritarian challenge that I think we face in today's political landscape."

Voter protection is critical right now. Every single voter's voice should count. "It's only by defending every single vote and every single progressive candidate in both the House and the Senate that we can make any headway."

Dinah focuses on the need to put concerted effort into pivotal local elections. "I think people don't realize how important local elections can be, because political parties and political structures have their roots at very local levels. People tend to focus on the national level, where they have the least ability to influence things. Politicians get their roots, their backing, their funding, their experience at the local level. This is something that Republicans understand when they focus on school board contests to energize their base. We have to similarly energize our base at the most local levels on up, and not just turn out for presidential elections."

Dinah enjoyes working with Crimson Goes Blue because of the people. "I know that they put hard work into analyzing the political choices and opportunities. And it's a fun, smart, ambitious group of people; it's an opportunity for these people, who benefited from the greatest advantages that our society can give, to give back and apply their knowledge, expertise, and connections to help people across the country exercise their democratic rights."

As leader of the Voter Protection ActionTeam, Dinah knows that elections are won or lost sometimes by a handful of votes. “One person can make an enormous difference simply by spending an hour calling people and helping them vote. Sometimes it's very clear: 'you forgot to sign your ballot.' But sometimes the challenges that people face in voting are 'I work hours that don't let me go to the polls.' Or 'I'm disabled, and I really can't go vote in person.' Or 'I don't have a car.' And you can actually help them with these problems.”

Voter protection is something Dinah hopes everyone at Crimson Goes Blue will be involved in. Many of the activities require just an hour of your time and attention. And the work can be very rewarding. "There is nothing that compares to the feeling that you've helped someone who actually wanted to vote and filled out an absentee ballot, make sure that their ballot error is fixed and that their vote counts. People were so grateful, they were so kind, and thankful. Even if you had called them and 15 other people had called them, I never failed to get people who told me that they were glad that we were doing this work. This is a great feeling, to know that you made a difference."

We have to help fight many more elections and get into the trenches. And we need to motivate others to join us. People will probably get excited again in 2024, but unless we engage in 2022, it may be too late. We have to keep as many Democrats in the government as possible, because the alternative is the Republican Party, which has become quite authoritarian.

“We've got to rally. I've seen too often what happens as democracies wither and die. It's hard for us to imagine in the United States, but it happens all the time. It's not going to be easy. We have to really put our whole energy into this.”

Class Captain, class of 1991

Interview by Joe Grochmal

To say that Jennifer had an "interest" in politics would be an understatement. While many young campaigners begin volunteering in their teens, she started much earlier. "My first documented 'campaign work' was for McGovern '72 when I was 3 years old," says Miller, whose father was a passionate political and civil rights activist. When she arrived at Harvard in 1987, Miller's brother Jonathan '89, HLS' 92 had started a Students for Al Gore national organization. She volunteered for Gore's New Hampshire presidential primary, the Dukakis general election campaign, and then the Gore U.S. Senate office.

In 1991-92, Miller served on the Clinton campaign staff as a field coordinator, vice presidential selection researcher, and deputy press secretary. After the Clinton-Gore victory, Miller began working for Ron Klain HLS '87 (now the White House Chief of Staff) in the presidential transition, the White House Counsel's Office, and the office of the Attorney General. After three semesters at Stanford Law School, Miller worked for Klain again during the 1996 election year, when he was Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore. During the 2000 general election, she took a leave from practice at a DC law firm for a senior role at the Democratic National Committee.

Over the next decade, having moved home to Lexington, KY, Miller took on leadership roles in local Democratic politics until suffering a series of health crises. In 2012, she was finally diagnosed after 20 years with multiple sclerosis (MS) and found herself unable to participate in political campaigns.

Remote campaign options have expanded over the last decade, though, and according to Jennifer, the COVID pandemic has increased opportunities for disabled activists. She found it easier to support 2020 campaigns and key issues from home, as more programs now involve an online format (e.g., Zoom) and letter-writing.

Miller discovered Crimson Goes Blue while looking for ways to help with the Georgia U.S. Senate run-offs. Through CGB, she sent letters to Georgia voters and made calls for absentee ballot "curing" in Virginia. As a CGB volunteer, Miller also serves as a Class Captain, bringing many of her classmates and former DC colleagues into the organization.

In CGB, Miller has found a community that makes it easy for her to engage and participate in a meaningful, effective manner. "I trust the Crimson Goes Blue community to sift through the news and data, and to offer effective action opportunities," she says, "whether in-person, through fundraising, [or] via remote volunteerism."

She encourages both young alumni and seasoned professionals to think about the breadth of skills and experience they can bring as volunteers. Campaigns and activist groups need video creators, graphic designers, and social media experts in addition to more traditional roles like voter protection attorneys, data analysts, and outreach volunteers. In 2022, there will be many ways to make a difference, and CGB can connect the Harvard community to those opportunities.

As Miller told Legal Times in a 2000 profile of young attorneys in presidential campaigns, "There's never a bad time to do something you're passionate about." With so much at stake in 2022, Jennifer Miller thinks the time for all of us to act is now.

New Hampshire Action Team Leader

Interview by Tomasz Maciak

He coordinated the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign’s get out the vote (GOTV) efforts in Maine and ran the Kerry-Edwards GOTV campaign in Cincinnati/Hamilton County, Ohio in 2004. He volunteered for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign in New Hampshire, then for Antonio Delgado in the 2018 midterm elections in NY19. More recently, in 2020 Rich worked as a community organizer of the For Our Future Fund PAC for Biden-Harris in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Below is the full interview. It has been lightly edited.

What drew you to Crimson Goes Blue?

The first thing was their focus on fair elections and their recognition of what a critical point we’re at in terms of protecting elections. For me, that's the bedrock issue. If we are able to vote and elections count, then we will have debates and the swing of the pendulum politically, but we have a shot. If we lose free elections and that foundation, that’s hard to get back.

Can you talk about your experience with politics and organizing?

I live in Needham, MA. My original Harvard class was 1973, and I left school to do political work and then came back to finish a couple of years later.

Phillips Brooks House was the thing that got me thinking about and involved in the politics of our time. The program that stuck with me was the Norfolk Fellowship program, visiting a prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts. It was really just a discussion group among people from the outside and some inmates. It opened my eyes to how my upbringing was so different from the guys who were on the inside. The inmates I was meeting with had grown up primarily around Boston, and their path to getting arrested and having to do time was a whole different experience than mine. That gave me pause, thinking about how we're not all as equal as we thought we were.

The start of it was the presidential campaign in 1972. I was about to become a senior, but I left school to work full-time on the McGovern campaign, trying to defeat Nixon. A lot of it was about trying to end the Vietnam War. I had a lot of friends who served. I was in school and got a very high draft number, so I wasn't going to be drafted. But I felt that you had to be involved in (the Vietnam War) one way or another. If I didn't believe in the war, I should actively do something to try to stop it.

Why did you choose to focus on New Hampshire?

CGB has a lot of members who live in Massachusetts, so it makes sense for us to focus on a nearby state that is in play. In New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan (U.S. Senator) won by fewer than 2,000 votes. She's going to have a tough race. Chris Pappas (D) is also running for re-election to Congress. Those two races are, in my judgment, worth trying to make a difference. It's a matter of trying to identify a vote and turn it up. For us, that means we have to outwork the opposition, and the opposition has been pretty fired up in recent years.

What’s your vision for the New Hampshire Action team?

I'm focused on winning those races and on figuring out what we have to do to prepare for them.

A lot of that is about good analysis of the voting in recent elections. What vote level do we need in each precinct, each ward; what goals do we need to have? My goal is to give people a very specific target to aim for.

I hope that we will keep an eye on the voter targeting aspect of the race, and on turnout and operations, which are both key. Targeting has changed somewhat since I started, with texting and social media, but there is still nothing that beats good old door-knocking.

With your vast experience in politics and organizing, what advice do you have for others?

Number one, it’s important to be active. We’re not always in agreement on all the issues—and I don’t think we need to be. That’s probably not ever healthy. ‘My way or the highway’—it’s never really like that. The hallmark of the best efforts that I’ve been involved with is being able to have diversity of opinion and still work together.

The other thing I would say is, democracy is fragile, both at the local level and nationally. I hope people understand the urgency of it. If you take a broader view, it’s not only about elections. We have workplace issues, climate issues, and you could go on and on. For young folks now, they’ve got an unbelievable challenge—probably greater than what we thought we had back in the ’70s. It’s important to try to learn now, and commit to being active for a long time. That’s what it’s about, and understanding that it is never really “over.” I felt really good when Biden won. But obviously, the work doesn’t end with an election: here we are, and we’ve got to keep going. Being in it for the long haul and being persistent, those are lessons I’ve learned the hard way. We all have to think of being in it for the long run.