CAMDEN – Sam Patten knows the meaning of party politics.

Where once he helped run George Bush’s presidential campaign in Maine, the 33-year-old Camden man recently has worked in Baghdad, touting the merits of political parties in anticipation of Iraq’s January elections.

It’s risky business.

Patten, a 1989 graduate of Camden-Rockport High School, had to return home in April when the violence became particularly extreme. He expects to return to Iraq in a few days.

In an interview Friday, he said there are as many as 100 fledgling political groups in Iraq, each learning to take steps toward crafting a message and building coalitions.

As resident political director in Iraq for the International Republican Institute, Patten has dealt with dozens of factions, teaching them the finer points of politics.

Patten worked on Susan Collins’ gubernatorial campaign in 1994, then on her Senate campaign in 1996. He landed a job with Collins after her election and was able to leave to coordinate President Bush’s 2000 campaign in Maine.

Patten earned a degree in political science with a minor in international relations from Georgetown University.

While getting his hair cut in the Senate barbershop one day, he overheard a conversation about IRI. Both IRI and its counterpart, the Democratic National Institute, were created by President Reagan to foster democracy around the world. Both are nonpartisan in their work.

Patten left Collins for a job with IRI and worked in Russia for about three years. While there, he helped two political parties craft their messages and run their candidates.

Despite the daily violence in Iraq, Patten has recent polling data completed by IRI that show most Iraqis are optimistic – and, he believes, most favor a unified, secular country.

After nearly 40 years of being dominated by a single party, Iraqis are taking their first steps toward creating a multiparty, parliamentary system. According to Patten’s polling data, some 90 percent of Iraqis expect to vote in the coming election, although many fail to understand what that first vote will accomplish.

Among the tasks IRI is working on is educating Iraqis about the process, Patten said. The next election will create an assembly that will craft a constitution. The constitution then will be put before voters in a referendum, then a parliament will be chosen.

IRI polls also show:

. About 80 percent of Iraqis have no allegiance to any political party.

. About 30 percent support a system that would work to represent the country’s various factions.

. Some 20 percent support a multiparty system; 16 percent support a system run by one party.

. About 10 percent support having a religious leader.

. Fifty-four percent see Iraq moving in the right direction, while 30 percent think it is headed in the wrong direction.

. Sixty-eight percent believe the interim government is likely to provide a solution to current problems.

Asked about religion, 70 percent described themselves simply as Muslims, Patten said, while 19 percent said they were Shiite and 10 percent said they were Sunni, the two major divisions in Islam.

“There’s a lot of mixed families, mixed neighborhoods,” he said.

The most common misunderstanding about Iraq among Americans, Patten believes, is that the situation is hopeless and that the country is on the verge of civil war.

“My sense is that the people who want the country to deteriorate into civil war are not Iraqis,” he said. Afghanis, Saudis and Iranians are among the troublemakers, he said.

Patten said he supported the U.S. invasion, and his polls show that the occupation is not a top concern among Iraqis. Rather, it is unemployment, which continues to be a problem, he said.

When Patten is in Iraq, he wears sunglasses to cover his blue eyes and retains a couple of days’ worth of stubble.

When he meets with Iraqis, Patten lets it be known that his 5-year-old son “is a direct descendant of the Prophet.” He explained that his wife, who is from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic, has relatives who trace their ancestry to Mohammed.

The biggest mistake the United States has made, he believes, is disbanding the Iraqi military because it created instant unemployment. The soldiers should have been put to work rebuilding and securing the country, Patten believes.

There are about 130 parties in Iraq, Patten said, though some are “one-man shows.” About 100 are legitimate, though some represent areas as small as a neighborhood. “They run the spectrum from the Islamacists to what I call the mushy middle to the hard-core ideologues,” he said.

One exercise IRI recently completed was putting representatives of 18 parties in a room together and facilitating their organizing themselves into three coalitions, according to ideology and goals.

“I think they do want what we have to offer,” Patten said. “They have appetites for democracy.”

Patten mused that his stint in Iraq may have cured his thirst for living abroad, and he is looking forward to reuniting his family in Washington, D.C.