1968 was a seminal year in my life and in the lives of many. It was the year I tried hardest to change the political priorities of my country. With my wife’s support, I joined the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy for President. Inspired, I had designed a plan for RFK to capture the delegates of the states that selected its delegates through the convention system. There were 17 such states at the time. Everyone else had been working on the states that ran primaries. I sent the plan to the RFK Think Tank in DC. I didn’t have a name to send it to; I just sent it to the Think Tank office.

To my surprise I got a phone call from Mary Jo Kopechne, who worked at the Think Tank. They were very interested in my plan. She said John Siegenthaler wanted to fly out to Kentucky (where I was a young Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University) to discuss it with me. She added, “Can you meet with him?” I was shaking in my boots. The Deputy Attorney General in charge of Civil Rights in the JFK administration was coming to get my advice?

Mr. Siegenthaler walked into my office with the plan in his hand. “Your plan is excellent,” He said. We didn’t discuss it again. Instead he asked if I would attend the campaign meeting in Indianapolis at which RFK would speak to people he hoped would work for him. I started shaking in my boots again, but I managed to blurt out that I would be there.

I was getting carried away by my sense of self-importance.

I attended, along with 500 others. Bobby was so humble. He said he didn’t have much support—not from labor, not from business, not from much anyone else—except us. So if we wanted to work for him there wasn’t much competition. He then invited us to stay and talk with each other and with a few staff members. These were the elite supporters, and we all wanted to be among them.

I talked with writer David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who had written The Best and the Brightest, an important book about the origins of the Vietnam War. David listened more than he spoke. It was as if he were writing a book on the RFK campaign workers.

Then I met Dick Goodwin, a speechwriter and advisor to both JFK and RFK. He had drafted the concept of the Peace Corp under the JFK administration. A Harvard Law School graduate, he’d been a law clerk for Justice Felix Frankfurter. I knew Dick Goodwin to be a bold creature of creativity and social justice, a man who got into a lot of trouble and got out of it all. He and I hit it off pretty well and maintained a connection for 35 years.

Next I met Susan Sontag, who ended up writing great articles on Robert Kennedy and the campaign.

These men and this woman were most impressive to me then and remain so to this day. They exuded excellence.

There may have been other supporters of equal stature in the room, but this was enough to capture me. I told Mr. Siegenthaler I wanted to join the campaign in whatever capacity I was needed. He asked me to work in the upcoming Indiana primary—that was where I was needed now. My job was to recruit students from Kentucky to work in Indiana. He told me to report to the campaign office in New Albany, Indiana, and tell them what I was going to do.

New Albany is across the Ohio River from Louisville, KY. I traveled to college campuses throughout Kentucky during the week, talked with students, and produced three busloads of students for weekends in New Albany. I was so passionate about the campaign that I paid for the buses out of pocket even though I didn't have the money to spare. I was too busy to bill the campaign for the expense. (Ethel Kennedy later reimbursed me after Bobby was killed.)

We won the primary and moved on to California. John Siegenthaler was in charge of Northern California. The headquarters were in San Francisco, so that’s where I went. Students came in daily from all over the country, and many of them used my hotel room as temporary quarters until they got settled in rooms of their own. There was no planned training program for us. We just tried what was suggested at the weekly staff meetings.

My job stayed the same. I organized students in San Francisco and in the five surrounding counties for the get-out-the-vote drive on Election Day. The technique was simple. I carried a bag of Robert Kennedy buttons and offered one to everyone I met. If they took one, I pursued a conversation, solicited their help, and took their name and number to relay to the local organization. I convinced other workers from headquarters to go with me on these trips.

Many celebrities helped with special events. Though I was not generally involved in organizing their campaign activities, there was one special series of events I was blessed to be a part of: I traveled with Caesar Chavez—farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist—as he spoke on the campaign trail. He was on a hunger strike and weak, but what he said was powerful to the listeners. And it was powerful to me.

We continued our operations on the campuses for six weeks. Of course, we won the California primary. We were celebrating at a large party when it happened... I was standing next to Ted Kennedy watching the LA victory party on television. When Bobby was shot, Teddy was gone in a flash. I was so stunned I couldn’t even move. After a while I made it back to my hotel room and stared in shock at the television...

My mother had died a couple of weeks before the murder of Bobby Kennedy. I had gone home to Texas to arrange her funeral. Now I returned there to deal with issues of her death that I had put off: the house, getting rid of possessions, etc. But persistent in my mind was the question of how I could best carry on the mission that had drawn us all to Bobby’s campaign. Bobby’s commitment made me a believer that we could get out of Vietnam and concentrate on empowerment of the impoverished. He showed a sense of moral purpose that I would always hold up as a beacon.

I came back to Kentucky and thought about what I should do. I did not want to let my new mission die. I decided to run for Congress.

I had learned the value of broad participation by a large number of people in a campaign. So I started recruiting people one by one. Many of the folks I recruited did the same. I asked for support—their work and their money. I asked them to contribute $20 a month for 18 months. I don’t remember anyone turning me down. Many wrote checks for the whole amount. I was astounded by how many people were ready to join the effort.

We had 18 months to work on the challenge. But I blew it. First, I got drunk at a political rally. Then I bought a typewriter that turned out to be hot. I was arrested and charged with “knowingly receiving stolen property.” They set the trial date for three days before the scheduled election. I had no choice but to pull out of the race. In short order I was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 1-5 years in the state prison.

Bobby wasn’t given the chance to succeed with his mission. I threw mine away. But it didn’t take me long to develop a new sense of hope. I need to have a sense of hope. And these days, I am especially encouraged. Let me explain…

The Robert Kennedy campaign of 1968 was one of the most important experiences in my life. I found the right place for my passion. I learned something about what Aristotle called the ‘art of the possible.’ I learned how possibilities can quickly appear and just as quickly disappear.

I think that is what so many young people are learning in the Barack Obama campaign. Obama’s campaign is much better organized than the RFK campaign. Obama had an organization in place in every state before the first primary. The Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that Obama was first to use the Web as a campaign tool. McCain tried to follow, probably too little too late.

Obama’s online network of registered users is more than five times larger than McCain’s. Obama’s sites attract three times as many unique users each week as McCain’s. The Internet and young people’s skills in using it are providing opportunities that we never dreamed of in 1968. In the RFK campaign we spoke one-on-one and used the media. Through the Internet the Obama campaign speaks to millions simultaneously.

The Obama campaign has raised more money using the Internet than anyone ever. Their follow-up email system to site visitors is professional and rapid. They designed an actual role for those who offer to help: they recruit and train people to become Deputy Field Organizers. But you can’t just take the training. You have to apply and get accepted. At the recent Camp Obama in Chicago they had 1200 applicants for 350 positions for the four-day intensive training.

They broke the country into regions so that there would be a training application process for everyone. Harvard’s Marshall Ganz, formerly an organizer for Caesar Chavez, leads many of these trainings at Camp Obama. Some states like California, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, to name a few, each have their own Camp Obama.

Hans Reimer, national youth vote director for the Obama campaign, describes it this way: “We are teaching them, teaching them how to be effective, showing them what their role is in our strategy to win the election… We’re taking people from raw enthusiasm to capable organizers.”

I know that participation in these programs—that this whole Obama campaign—will impact the throngs of passionate young people fueling it in positive ways they will never forget. This is what throwing myself into the RFK campaign did for me. My hope is that this time, the mission will be successful.