Knowing that her conservative stances might provoke negative reactions from other Madison residents, Nix leaves most of her political views out of her personal life. When Nix started working as a nanny during the summer, she took the George W. Bush bumper sticker off the back of her car and put it on the back of her notebook. Just to be safe.
Yet, she remains optimistic. In the first small town hall meeting held just a week ago, Nix had several conversations with curious attendees -- both conservative and liberal -- without incident.
Her summer campaign efforts will likely be a vacation compared to the next few months. Between her studies, campaigning and a second job in a biochemistry lab, she'll try and work with four other campaign chairs, about 40 active volunteers and an e-mail list of more than 500 College Republicans to get out the vote.
She and the other McCain campaigners will likely have an uphill battle: Barack Obama overwhelmingly won the student vote during the Democratic primary with a large grassroots push and Students for Obama volunteers vastly outnumber the McCain backers.
"If anything, I'll be spending the weekends campaigning instead of going out with everybody else."