Politics & Power Quote by Marc Racicot

Racicot’s line is a bureaucratic reassurance with a strategic edge: youth aren’t being sidelined, and the campaign “machine” is supposedly an equal-opportunity grind. The phrasing, though, gives away what’s really being sold. “As many jobs” is carefully noncommittal; it promises parity without promising power. In the ecosystem of a modern campaign, the word “jobs” can mean anything from message testing and scheduling to door-knocking, phone-banking, data entry, and endless shifts of “visibility” work. By collapsing all of that into one bucket, Racicot flatters younger Americans with inclusion while quietly avoiding the harder question: who gets meaningful roles, credit, and pathways to paid political careers?

The second sentence is the tell. Calling campaigns “labor intensive and volunteer dependent” frames participation as a civic necessity, not a staffing choice. It normalizes a model that runs on underpaid or unpaid work, which tends to privilege people with time, money, and flexible lives. That’s often not young people broadly, but young people with resources - interns who can afford to intern, recent grads who can float a few months, students with networks.

Contextually, the remark reads like a response to worries about youth disengagement or complaints that politics is run by older gatekeepers. Racicot’s intent is to recruit and to defuse: yes, you’re welcome; yes, you’re needed; don’t ask whether you’ll be heard. The subtext is that campaigns can always use your energy, even when they’re less willing to share authority.