In Barack Obama's presidential campaign, the mantra of the faithful has been that a child shall lead them - but few were taking that literally.

Now, though, they have 14-year-old Joshua Steele of Studio City, who is too young to vote but not too young to show them the way.

In the five months of the just-completed historic Democratic presidential primary campaign, Joshua personally made no fewer than 1,100 telephone calls on behalf of the now presumptive party nominee to voters in several states holding primaries as well as Guam.

Campaign officials had no idea Joshua was 14 - and neither did the people he was calling.

"No one I called ever asked me how old I was," said Joshua, whose voice on the phone sounds like it could belong to someone several years older, possibly even a college student.

Joshua's accomplishment - believed by the campaign to be among the most calls made by a single volunteer in California - underscores Obama's youthful appeal and how he has been able to attract a historic groundswell of new voters and political volunteers.

"It's just incredible what he's done," said Peter Rothenberg of the Obama campaign in the San Fernando Valley, which last week hosted Joshua and his family at a party celebrating the Illinois senator's long-awaited clinching of the nomination.

"Our volunteers (at the party) were amazed, and the message was clear: If a 14-year-old volunteer who can't even vote can make 1,100 calls, the rest of us can't afford to sit back and not try to do as much."

The feat of young Joshua, the son of HBO executive Richard Steele and LAUSD substitute teacher Laura, is also another example of the changes modern technology has wrought on political campaigns.

Campaign phone banks are no longer boiler-room operations in windowless offices packed with volunteers talking over one another and scouring through stacks of voter lists.

Today, cell phones allow political phone-bank work to take place almost anywhere, and the Obama campaign Web site provides volunteers with computerized lists of voters and potential supporters, online checklists to be filled out after each call and a script for callers to use.

"The Obama campaign is one that has been highly run in cyberspace," Rothenberg said.

In the Valley, the Obama campaign regularly used Saturdays during the primary season for phone-banking get-togethers at parks or in the homes of volunteers.

But Rothenberg said volunteers were encouraged to make calls wherever they felt most comfortable.

"I made all my calls from home," said Joshua, who never once went into any of the Obama campaign offices.

Still, when he decided he wanted to make calls on behalf of the campaign, his mom said she and her husband insisted they monitor his efforts, which were mostly made on weekends with the youngster sitting in front of a computer using his cell phone.

"We were there with him on each call, but after about the 500th call, we concluded he was doing well," she said.

The Steeles, however, did block 10-year-old daughter Harriet's bid to do what her brother was doing.

"I made two calls," said Harriet, "and then Mom said, `Your voice just sounds too much like that of a child."'

But Harriet, like her brother, has signed up on the Obama campaign Web site, where they maintain their own blogs and regularly post entries.

They also are not alone. The Obama campaign has a special "Kids for Obama" Web page with a starter kit and a list of 10 ways children can get involved.

Joshua, who just graduated from the Village Glen School in Sherman Oaks, where he won the Principal's Award and Presidential Award, said he became an Obama supporter in early 2007 after the Illinois senator announced his candidacy.

He then began pressing his parents to support Obama.

"I thought I was going to be voting for Hillary," said his mother, "but Joshua convinced us to read up on Obama, and that changed our minds."

No poll has measured Obama supporters who made the choice at the urging of their children, but many parents - among them Caroline Kennedy - have mentioned their children in explaining why they decided to campaign for Obama.

Most of those, however, have been persuaded by children who were college-age or older.

Though younger, Joshua managed to handle even the crankiest of phone-call recipients.

"Once I was calling Texas at the end of March for their county conventions, and one person asked, `Are you a typical white person?' I said, `Yes, but I don't think that has a place in the campaign.'

"And one person in Pennsylvania said that Obama was an a-hole. I didn't even acknowledge that. I just said, `Thanks for your time and have a great day."'

Rothenberg said the feedback from volunteers on the Web site after each phone call will continue to be a valuable asset in identifying Obama supporters for follow-up contact as the campaign turns its sights to the general election.

Joshua said he plans to continue making calls through the summer, right up until the Nov. 4 general election.

"The goal," he said, "is to elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States."

 

tony.castro@dailynews.com

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