Close Maine friends represent rival candidates at caucuses

Although they each hold ranking positions for rival Democratic presidential candidates and have been intensely focused on the Iowa caucuses for months, Maine friends Jess Knox and Emmett Beliveau still manage to find time on the campaign trail to hang out and swap stories.

“We’ve been close friends for a long time. I was best man at his wedding,” Beliveau said of Knox. “We both have great respect for our candidates and great respect for each other.”

Beliveau was reached in Des Moines by telephone Thursday at a banquet hall where he was helping set up the stage where Barack Obama would address his supporters later that night.

Beliveau, 31, the oldest son of noted Maine lawyer and veteran Democratic Party leader Severin Beliveau, is a member of Obama’s senior

staff and serves as his national director of advance. He has been with the senator since Obama announced his intention to run for president last February.

Portland resident Knox, 32, first worked for former Sen. John Edwards when he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2003 and ran for vice president in 2004. He currently serves as Edwards’ deputy national political director.

Though he usually commutes back and forth from Portland, Knox has been in Iowa since early December. He is in charge of the Edwards campaign in the “four early states” – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – which will either caucus or hold primaries before the month is out.

“I’ve been with the campaign since June,” said Knox, who was also reached by phone in Iowa. “It’s been a lot of hard work and it’s a lot of fun. Emmett is a very close friend. We tend to get a drink or dinner every few days.”

A check Wednesday with the Maine Republican Party didn’t find any party members from Maine who were working or volunteering in the Iowa caucuses.

Beliveau and Knox were both active in politics while in college and first met during a statewide campaign 1996. They later worked on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and spent five weeks in Volusia County, Fla., on Gore’s behalf during the infamous Florida recount. Both men also worked on the John Kerry-John Edwards presidential campaign of 2004.

“It was in the blood,” Beliveau said of his political calling. “I grew up around campaigns and was very active in the College Democrats at Colby.”

Knox said that he was first drawn to politics by the “public service nature of it” and a desire to implement change and fight for goals and candidates he believes in.

“Early on the draw has to do with the excitement, the long hours and camaraderie. For anyone who’s ever been involved in sports, it has that team mentality, us versus them, very competitive,” Knox said. “As you get older, the background is in organizing, getting out the vote and finding ways to build relationships with voters. … It is a world that is amazing.”

Both men described Iowa as being very similar to Maine with its strong agricultural heritage, “wonderful people” and cold weather. They described the trenches of a presidential campaign as a place where you’re always on the move and where sleep is rare.

Though they are rivals today, Beliveau said both were “looking forward to supporting our party’s nominee for president.”

Knox and Beliveau are scheduled to leave Iowa for New Hampshire right after the caucus and will be there until the Jan. 8 primary. In addition, Knox’s wife, Kate Knox, an attorney with the Portland firm Bernstein Shur Sawyer & Nelson, is also an Edwards supporter and is coordinating a group of Maine volunteers traveling to New Hampshire for the final week of the campaign.