A child of a candidate takes on his mom's cause

Carrie Dann NBC Reporter

Greensboro, N.C. - On New Years Day, twenty-four year old Tilden Hagan woke up, wedged himself into the driver’s seat of his full-to-the-gills old Saturn, and drove across America to work for a promising political star.

His mom.

When North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan told her three children that she was thinking of running for U.S. Senate against Republican Elizabeth Dole, her son Tilden started wondering if he could pull off exchanging his California life for a Carolina one.

Could he move home to Greensboro to help with his mother's campaign and still finish his organic chemistry prerequisites before med school in the fall? Could he bear to leave the promising job he loved, the Boy Scouts he mentored, and the gorgeous coastline where he'd just learned how to skydive? And could he fit all his stuff in his car?

Now, in his hometown of Greensboro, where Hagan's Democratic primary campaign is headquartered, Tilden says the decision made itself.

"When she told me she was running, I just dropped it all," he says of the life he left behind in San Diego. "I couldn't wait to get back here and help out."

Politics is nothing new to the tousle-headed Duke graduate, an unflaggingly energetic worker and athlete who wears a tiny gear from an old mountain-bike on a chain around his neck. His mom first ran for her state senate seat when he was in high school, and talk of committee hearings and legislative haggling dominated dinnertime conversation throughout his teenage years.

But, this time around, he's hitting the road as a surrogate for his mother, speaking to students at colleges throughout North Carolina. He's even bending the same ears as America's most famous chip off the political block, Chelsea Clinton.

Jack of all trades
Since he arrived in North Carolina in January, Tilden has served as a phone banker, computer guru, event coordinator, and leading surrogate for the campaign. An IT whiz, his first task was to set up the computer network at Hagan HQ. He does advance prep work for his mother's campaign stops throughout the state. As the one who knows his mom the best, he jokes, he often gets the job of making sure she has lunch when she's on the trail. He's also been her tutor on the cutting edge of political communication. (He even taught her how to send text messages on her cell phone.)

Interactive Decision '08 leaderboard See who's leading in the race for the presidency. NBC News

But his first love, says Tilden, is talking to people his own age about politics.

He's not alone. In an election year buzzing with optimistic projections of youth involvement, the children of political candidates have taken on an unprecedented role as educators of their peers.

Before John Edwards ended his presidential bid, his 26 year-old daughter Cate crisscrossed Iowa's college classrooms to promote her dad's policies. Insiders know that Sarah Huckabee was the gatekeeper to her father's rollicking campaign. Mitt Romney's five sons blogged their way through the early primaries, and John McCain's daughter Meghan maintains an online journal that adds a hip tinge to the travels of the 72-year old war veteran.

Video Chelsea Clinton stumps for mom Jan. 24: Chelsea Clinton speaks at Spelman College, part of a bid to help her mother reach young and minority voters. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports. Today show

And then there's Chelsea.

The former first daughter has visited over 90 colleges in an effort to pump up her mom's street cred with the Facebook generation.

During her latest swing through battleground state North Carolina, Tilden was in the audience at Peace College in Raleigh, where he himself had spoken only days before.

Before the crowd of admiring students dispersed after Chelsea's Q&A session, he got to do what he loves best as a political progeny: talk to his peers about his mom.

"I'm really amazed [at] how much they know," he says of the North Carolina students he has met during the campaign.

"They're the most vocal of the groups I've seen. They're the most excited about what's going on."

With a wide grin, he adds, "I really just feed off of that."

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