Back in 1999, I seriously contemplated leaving journalism, putting down my pen and hitting the campaign trail to work for presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

For years, I had watched Mr. Bradley from afar and admired his political sensibilities. His straight talk on race relations was a refreshing contrast to all too often heard rhetoric that pitted the races against each other. I believed in Mr. Bradley’s campaign. I thought then – and I certainly believe now – that he would have been an outstanding president.

The idea of becoming a campaign volunteer for Mr. Bradley suddenly disappeared when reality set in and I realized I needed to make a living. But I remember that year well. Dozens of my young, progressive friends took the plunge, leaving stable and sometimes lucrative jobs to rally behind Mr. Bradley as campaign volunteers or lowpaid staffers. They believed in his candidacy and thought he could change America for the better.

A few years later, a friend from my college days at Georgetown University left a cushy job in New York to work for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. She packed her belongings into her vehicle and made the drive north to Vermont to offer her help to Dr. Dean’s grassroots campaign.

That spirit of political engagement has always intrigued me, particularly when one considers all the national polls and data that suggest young folks are not as interested in politics as the generation that came before them. I just don’t buy it.

In this year’s mayoral race, all the campaigns had young people in prominent positions helping to make sure the candidate didn’t stumble or forget to shake the hands of the last three senior citizens at the nursing home, who undoubtedly made the trek to the polls on Election Day.

The hours these staffers work are long and the pay is not glamorous. They have to deal with nagging reporters and editors like myself who never feel like we have enough access to their candidates. They are often the first to get beat up when a negative news story about their candidate hits the front page or when a candidate misses an important speaking engagement.

It’s a tough job, and yet in elections across the country each year, thousands of young people sign up for the challenge. Pauly Rodney, 28, got lucky and spent the last four months working on one of the more interesting mayoral races. Earlier this year, he became the deputy communications director for Fernando Ferrer. Mr. Rodney’s tenure on the political landscape started in 2003, when he joined the presidential campaign of John Edwards as a field organizer. He later worked in Senator Edwards’s New Hampshire office.

Mr. Rodney, who is black, hails from New Jersey and is a 2000 graduate of Princeton University. He knows politics better than most people I’m acquainted with. Even when the polls long suggested that Mr. Ferrer would lose to Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Rodney worked on, never expressing doubt about the candidate in whom he believed. Day in and day out, he worked as if the mayoral race between Messrs. Bloomberg and Ferrer was neck and neck.

I admire that kind of loyalty, but I am often reminded it is not all that unusual, especially in a city like New York. In next year’s race for attorney general, Mark Green has the good fortune of being advised by Corey Johnson, a twenty-something political operative who has an amazing ability to wrap his head around campaigns. At a time when our nation is in need of new leadership, I am hopeful some of these same young people who have worked for candidates behind the scenes will run for office themselves.

For this to happen, the political establishment has to be willing to pass the baton. Once that happens, I have no doubt young folks will run and win.

Mr. Watson is the executive editor of the New York Amsterdam News. He can be reached at jamalwats@aol.com.