Zach Ammerman, 18

Lebanon, Indiana

Zach Ammerman has always enjoyed politics. Now, after working on Hilary Clinton's campaign, he hopes to make a career out of it.

Although Clinton has stepped down from the presidential race, Zach's enthusiasm for her and her causes hasn't dwindled. "I think she's awesome. I met her twice, and I was really inspired by her," he said.

Zach spent numerous hours canvassing neighborhoods and making phone calls to recruit voters for Clinton. He maintained his positive demeanor in the face of adversity. "I [was] going door-to-door and people were saying, 'You don't want to talk to me' because they are so Republican," he said. Still, he managed to smile and reply, "OK, have a good day!"

Though he is disappointed that Clinton won't be the next president, Zach will continue his involvement in the Democratic cause by supporting Barack Obama. He plans to campaign for Obama in Bloomington when he moves there to attend Indiana University in the fall.

"I'm going to school for political science … I want to devote my life to politics, basically any time there's an election," he said.

What advice would you give to other young people about getting involved in politics?

The thing is, a lot of people our age are apathetic about politics. People think that politics is just about people in Washington, and it doesn't really affect them this far away. But literally everything is affected by politics. If you really think about it, either indirectly or directly, everything, from my computer to a library, is affected by it.

This is the first year that the leading Democratic candidates have had a large body of young people involved. Why do you think this is?

Well, most of them went to Barack Obama's campaign. A lot of them were inspired by his message…he sort of seems like an outsider, and a lot of young people I think feel like they're outsiders, so they were more attracted to his campaign. And he's pretty young, [and] he's almost revolutionary in some of his ideas and the way he speaks.

Who do you predict will win the presidential election?

I think Obama has the momentum with him. But I think the media sort of overplay his chances of winning. I'm not really sure, honestly; I think he'll probably win, but it will be closer than people think.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I'd love to go into politics, but I don't know that I have the skills to do that, and it's sort of a risk to go into that. I'm thinking of being a campaign manager. I've sort of helped one of the guys who ran for mayor in Lebanon manage his campaign, Roger Neal. I gave him some advice. I'd love to do that, I think.