It was 2006 when I got the call to work on my first congressional campaign. Although I’d done some volunteering for the special election in Portman’s old district a few months before, this was my first paid campaign job. The candidate was Nathan Martin, fresh from Iraq, a fellow soldier, was running for congress on Ohio’s 4th district. Since Nathan had been training security forces in Iraq for a good part of his hitch, I knew he had the inner strength to handle a political campaign. (Nathan was a great guy and at the time only had one child. He’s gone on since then to birth an entire platoon — but that’s another story.) My job was to prepare Nathan for a few debates he was going to have against a few highly experienced primary opponents. Of course, the man to beat in those debates was State Representative Jim Jordan.
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