Chip Saltsman's crazy week on the campaign trail with Mike Huckabee started with fundraising events in Dallas and ended back home in Nashville just in time for church on Sunday.
The next day, he was back on the road - two days in Milwaukee, two days in California and a quick swing through Iowa before coming back to Tennessee for a few days with the family. The next week was more of the same - more travel, more organizing, more strategy sessions and more shadowing Huckabee as the former Arkansas governor tries to convince voters he should be America's next president.
"I guess I'm a glutton for punishment," joked Saltsman, who spends three weeks out of every month on the road with Huckabee as the campaign's senior adviser.
Saltsman is part of a small cadre of Tennesseans who are immersed in presidential politics, either as staff members, consultants or advisers to the Republicans and Democrats battling for the White House. They are helping the candidates fine-tune their messages, produce campaign commercials, raise money, deal with the press, qualify for the state ballots and build the army of volunteers needed to run a national race.
"This is much more than a job for me," Saltsman said. "It's a passion. This is somebody I truly believe in."
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