FOR CAMPAIGN WORKERS, IT'S THEIR BUSY SEASON

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The Printer Jon Males, Kansas

BASEHOR, Kan. — It was the final, frantic morning of election season in the propaganda shop. The last candidate mailers, those glossy postcards of staged photos and canned promises, clattered off the addressing machines at 300 per minute. They had to be in the mail by afternoon so they could clutter mailboxes before Election Day.

As the claims were piled in stacks — “a record we can count on,” “working for our future,” “the experience to lead — a desire to serve” — Jon Males paced his bustling workshop making sure deadlines were met. The owner of Recordnews, this small printing and mailing shop, he is one of thousands of Americans for whom the exercise of democracy offers a few months of extra income as well as a peek behind the curtain of modern politics.

Mr. Males has printed mailers, fliers and lawn signs for both Republicans and Democrats for two decades, from county commissioner to governor (in nine races he is working for both candidates). This month, his most lucrative ever, he hired eight temporary workers to assist, doubling his staff.

“Everything is basically an emergency once we get to October,” he said. The candidates “start wanting to mail as many things as they can, even if it’s day after day after day.” Mr. Males said he used to think of politicians as celebrities but now, “sometimes I feel like a therapist.”

Taken together, the postcards present a red, white and blue world of personal boosterism and, increasingly, unsparing attacks.

The print shop workers rarely pay attention anymore, except when something outlandish appears, like an attack ad depicting pigs at a trough with the slogan “Her agenda is too oinking extreme for Kansas.”

“Want to know the truth?” said Del Flackmiller, 65, lowering his voice conspiratorially as he worked one of the machines. “I get them right out of the mailbox and put them right in the trash.” He laughed. “Right in the trash.”

The last of the mailers were en route to the post office by the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline. “It’s out of our control at this point,” Mr. Males said.

The next day, the rest of the industry of campaign politics would be rolling once again. But here, the end came mercifully early. And Mr. Males would sleep an extra hour. A. G. SULZBERGER

The Ad Man Raymond Strother, Georgia

ATLANTA — His are the words Georgians hear when they flip on local news during the commercial break: “Do you vote against Washington or for Georgia?” His are the images they see during advertising blitzes in the final weeks of campaigning: his client, the Democratic candidate for governor, Roy Barnes, pressed against a barn, surrounded by whizzing arrows representing the political attacks of an opponent who “can’t shoot straight.”

Georgia voters would be hard-pressed to recognize Raymond D. Strother. But as a veteran of political advertising — writing the scripts, editing the sound, directing the actors — he provides the most direct contact they may ever have with a Democratic candidate. It is the quintessential behind-the-scenes job, with Mr. Strother, 70, an avuncular Texan, working in a small recording studio beside a bowling alley and a strip club, with one assistant.

“No, I never even thought about running for office myself,” he said. “I’m too blunt.”

Blunt, for example, when he handicaps the outlook for Mr. Barnes: “All things being equal, it will be very hard for a Democrat to win Georgia,” he said. “In focus groups, people say, ‘Sure, your opponent’s a crook — but he’s a Republican and I’m voting for him.’ ” Polls show Mr. Barnes slightly behind his Republican opponent, Nathan Deal, a former congressman whom the Barnes campaign has tried — with limited success — to paint as corrupt.

Mr. Strother entered political consulting when it was just becoming a field, in 1968, and created a Rolodex of Democratic titans, largely in the South, that at one time or another included Senators Lloyd Bentsen, John C. Stennis and Al Gore.

But this race is special: It is his last. Reluctantly, he came out of semiretirement in Montana, where he hunts, carves wooden furniture and writes novels, for “one final hurrah,” because Mr. Barnes, a former governor, is a close friend.

On Wednesday, he recorded his last radio commercial, called “Decide Now,” which tries to distance Mr. Barnes from President Obama. (The candidate argues that he has not seen the president anywhere on the campaign trail.)

“The perfect cap on my career would be electing Roy,” he said. But if it does not happen, he has a backup plan: “At that point, I’m only focused on the pheasant season.” ROBBIE BROWN

The Right-Hand Man Phillip Kugzruk, Alaska

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — The transformation of Phillip Kugzruk from voice in the wilderness to one-man band and bullhorn for Joe Miller, the Republican Senate candidate, happened quickly, and on camera.

Adi Hidayat

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Saturday, October 30, 2010