Artifact 4

BI-WEEKLY INTERNSHIP REPORT

Department of Government & Justice Studies
Appalachian State University

Report # / Date Report #3/October 4, 2022

Intern’s Name Sam Hodges

Site / Supervisor’s Name Cheri Beasley for Senate Campaign/Janani Gandhi

1. Period of time and activities covered. List the actual hours worked each day. Example:
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Describe your activities in a brief but detailed and thoughtful
manner.

Day Date Time Daily Activities

Frame

Sunday

Monday 9/19 10:00 AM – 3:00 I continued to find donors to match into the
PM Beasley campaign database. I also made a
few phone calls to check phone numbers
that Chief Justice Beasley was going to call.

Tuesday 9/20 2: 00 PM – 6:00 I continued to search for donors to match

PM into the Beasley campaign database.

Wednesday
Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday 9/26 10:00 AM – 3:00 I checked for phone numbers to call, but
PM they had all been called for the event that
occurred over the weekend, so I continued
to match phone numbers into the database.

Tuesday 9/27 2: 00 PM – 6:00 I continued to match phone numbers into

PM the database.

Wednesday

Thursday
 Friday

Saturday

Total Hours this Period 18

2. Describe activities that you considered a real highlight of your internship this period.
Reflect on and evaluate what you learned from the experience, using your education
as a basis for analysis.

I enjoyed making phone calls. Though I only made a few phone calls, I am looking forward to
using what I learned in the future. I will admit, it took me a while to figure out how to use the
website they tasked us with finding the correct phone numbers of the people we had to, but
once I did, it was easy to find numbers and make a few calls. In a book I just read today called
The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation by Moffitt, the
author talked about how political leaders often try to act like one of “the people” by doing
things like drinking, playing sports, etc. One of the events that the campaign had recently was
a football game watch party for one of the North Carolina universities. Though I do not think
Cheri Beasley is a populist by any means, it is interesting to think about how she and her
campaign utilize some of the same tactics. By inviting people to an event where she can
hangout and watch a sports team, she is showing North Carolinians that she is one of us.
3. Describe any challenges you encountered during this period. Explain how you dealt
with these issues. If you have not had problems, describe a particular individual you
 learned from this period, their role, what they taught you, and why you valued their
instruction.

As I mentioned in answer to question 2, I had a little bit of trouble using the website that
we needed to use to find people’s phone numbers. We are given a list of names but not
phone numbers. We use a website to type in the information that we know about the
person, such as name and city/zip code, then we have to search through the list of people
that pop up to find the correct phone number. At first, I was confused about which person
was the correct person. For example, if I typed in Cam Newton, who lives in Charlotte,
North Carolina, I might get between 5-10 responses. Initially, I was overwhelmed and
couldn’t figure out which person was the correct person. However, after revisiting the
instructions that my supervisor sent and through trial and error, I could find the correct
people.
 4. Bi-Weekly Report Essay Question. See the Internship Bi-Weekly Report Essay Questions
form for specific questions to be answered in the first, second, and final reports. For all
other reports, select a wildcard question from the form and provide a detailed answer to
one of the questions on the list, following all guidelines. In the space below, begin by
repeating the question number and question itself and then proceed to answer the
question.
__________________________________________________________________

7. Ethical Challenges: What do you believe are TWO of the most important ethical challenges
facing professionals in this field? Discuss the challenges these issues pose and possible
strategies to reduce problems in this area.

One of the most significant ethical challenges that I think facing the political finance field

has to do with the access of the donors to the political candidate. On the one hand, it does

make sense that if someone donates money to a political candidate, they should get some

access to the political candidate. On the other hand, it does seem problematic that people with

more money get more access to political candidates. Rich people who donate money are the

ones that get to go to the events and have literal access to political candidates. They can talk,

share ideas, and put pressure on political candidates. In my American Government class last

semester, we discussed how money drives politics. We talked about how political candidates

can feel obligated to listen to the demands of those who donate to them.

This made me think of the events that Chief Justice Beasley has been holding during her

campaign. While there are certain events that she attends that are not full of rich people, she

does often hold events that cater to those who have more money than the average person. As
part of my responsibilities, I am finding people who have already donated to either Chief Justice

Beasley’s campaign or to another Democratic candidates’ campaign and identifying them as

future donors and potential guests at events. While this is a fantastic strategy for finding

recurring, consistent donors, it can be harmful as it can continue a harmful cycle. By continuing

to primarily court people who have already donated and then giving those people continual

access to Democratic candidates, it can give them unfair access to the candidates. If the

candidates feel like they have to listen to the large donors, then large donor interests will be

better represented than smaller donors or those who cannot afford to donate at all.

Large donors will also probably have different priorities than those who cannot afford to

donate. And those who can’t donate will not be able to have their voice heard simply because

candidates cannot afford to listen to them. If people who need more assistance can’t get their

voices heard, they will perpetually stay in need of resources. And then, those with money and

power will be able to continue to advocate for their positions, and then they will stay in their

positions of power. And the cycle will continue.

Some of the possibilities for disrupting this that I thought of are already in practice.

However, we might need to get more severe and strict about them. For example, there are

already some limits on how much people or organizations can donate to a political candidate. It

might be high time to decrease those limits so that people can donate less money. Another

solution discussed in my Applied Politics class last semester was somehow incentivizing not

taking a lot of private donations. Or we could promise every candidate an equal amount of

something they spend money on, such as TV or radio ads. That way, they wouldn’t have to raise

as much money.
 The second ethical issue is much more minor and practical. We locate and call many

older people to ask for their money. And for some people, we take their credit card information

over the phone and donate the money to the campaign. As I was doing this, I thought about the

privacy and security concerns that could come up with that. A person could take people’s

information and use it for their own selfish means. The solution for this could also be very

practical: more oversight of employees and volunteers who take that information. That could be

things as simple as more monitoring of their phone calls and workstations to ensure they are

not collecting the information for selfish gains.