Photo Credit Tom Bloom
With every presidential election, there are stories of couples who fell in love while working long hours together to get their candidate elected.
But for every campaign-trail romance that ends in marriage, many others will be as short-lived as a lead in the polls was for Scott Walker and Ben Carson in the Republican primaries. One reason is that while the high-voltage atmosphere of political campaigns may incite passions, it also tends to skew the vision of the people working inside them.
"There is definitely such a thing as campaign goggles," said Sadie Weiner, 28, the communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington. "You see a lot o f people who met on campaigns married now and with kids, but I think even more realize a few weeks or months in, they don't have much in common."
"So many relationships don't last even as long as the campaign," Ms. Weiner said.
She met her husband, Zachary Wineburg, 35, who worked on President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, in a more low-key setting: at the apartment of his sister, whom Ms. Weiner had known from working together on a senatorial campaign.
According to Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of communication, political science and psychology at Stanford University, many political campaigns are breeding g rounds for intense short-lived romances.
"When people are on the same team, it eliminates conflict and promotes a sense of commonality," Dr. Krosnick said. "What happens is something that psychologists call arousal. I don't mean romantic arousal. It's simply adrenaline.
"There are potentially dramatic things that are happening every day in a campaign: attack ads by the other side, mistakes made. So many things are going on, and there's a crescendo, with the arousal level getting higher and higher, and that translates into a lack of ability to think clearly."
Among those to beat the odds were Rick Siger and Kinsey Casey, who met and dated briefly while working on John Kerry's 2004 election campaign and were married this Ju ly. But they say part of their success was because they put off the bulk of their courtship until all the campaign signs had been taken down.
Ms. Casey, 36, is now the deputy chief of staff for the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh; Mr. Siger, also 36, is director of strategic initiatives and engagement at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. They reconnected during President Obama's first presidential campaign and finally got serious in 2010.
"The universe of humans is highly limited by a campaign," Mr. Siger said. "You're seeing the same people all the time, and realistically, there's no one else for you to interact with. So, sure, many folks start dating in that environment."
Paul Sliker, 28, a media consultant from Brooklyn, and Sihem Mellah, 26, of Hoboken, N.J., a program assistant with a nonprofit group, were organizers for Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign when they met in March. They plan to marry in 2017. Their relationship flourished despite a pledge Mr. Sliker had made to himself that he would not date anyone involved in the campaign.
"It's easy to get caught up in the heat of a campaign," he said. "People fall into relationships and don't always make the best decisions."
But Mr. Sliker said he and Ms. Mellah are exceptions to the rule.
"Bernie was our liaison," Mr. Sliker said. "He was what brought us together, but we have a much greater connection than just politics."
Matt Posey, the former field manager for Dr. Carson's presidential effort, said campaigns have a "built-in hookup scenario."
"You're working 18- or 20-hour days, and alcohol is a big element, because people are looking to take the edge off," he said.
During Dr. Carson's presidential run, Mr. Posey traveled on a bus that sometimes covered 2,000 miles in two days with up to 40 other supporters, most of them younger than 30. The experience gave off the whiff of spring break.
"Campaigns don't lend themselves to loving relationships," Mr. Posey said. "If you married someone during the course of a campaign, you might want to divorce them by the time the campaign is over."
For college students and recent graduates, meeting kindred political spirits can be as much of a draw to a campaign as helping to get a candidate elected, said Gloria Mattera, deputy campaign manager for Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president.
"Young people have taught us not to be scared of social media," said Ms. Mattera, from Brooklyn. "But what I'm seeing is a lot of them want to get out from behind their computers and interact physically, with each other, even if it's standing on a street corner together passing out fliers. That's really part of the appeal of working on a campaign for them."
Geoff Wetrosky, 35, and Hal Brewster, 32, thought they were seeing clearly when they met in 2010 on the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Ted Strickland, the Democratic governor of Ohio at the time. But they were both aware of the tenuousness of many campaign romances and thought carefully about what their postelection relationship may look like.
"I don't think you're thinking long-term when you're in the stressful environment of a campaign," said Mr. Wetrosky, now the national campaign manager for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in Washington, and a staff member for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. "You're looking for somebody who understands what you're doing in that moment. That's where the goggles come in."
"You kind of learn after it's over, can we make this work, or was it forged in fire?" he said. "Our paths could have easily diverged. Hal was out of a job and decided he was going to go back to school, and I had a job offer that kept me in Ohio. And we had only been dating eight or nine months."
Ultimately, he and Mr. Brewster, a lawyer, found that they were compatible beyond the confines of the foxhole of campaign life. "We spent some time determining what our priorities were outside of that shared experience, and our priority became making our relationship work," Mr. Wetrosky said. The couple were married in 2015.
Even Dr. Krosnick, who can come across as a glass-half-empty sort of f ellow, keeps some hope alive that couples who have joined together this campaign season may still make a go of it.
"Under the light of day, when the election is over and the smoke clears, there's a reveal," he said. "And you never know. You might say to yourself, 'There's a lot that's good about us together.'"
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