THE ORGANIZERS | PART TWO OF THREE

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

The wall calendar in Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's North Las Vegas field office has a curious word scribbled on Jan. 21, which is two days after the presidential caucus in Nevada.

"Property."

Jason Green, an Obama regional field director, made sure to write this on the calendar to remind himself to complete his Yale Law School property law exam.

For although Green works 14-hour days - first in, last out - as a vital cog in the Obama field machine, he's also a third-year law student at Yale. (Don't tell: Not everyone back in New Haven knows he's here.)

Of the several effects of Nevada's status this year as an early voting state in the presidential race, this is one of the more auspicious: the presence - and not just in the Obama campaign - of the hypersmart, weirdly talented, unhealthily committed workers and volunteers who have flocked here to elect a president.

This phenomenon seems especially true among field organizers, who behave not like the cheap glory-seekers so often found in politics, but like adherents to a cause.

So here's Green, who left the Yale campus in October but remains enrolled and studies when he can and will complete his exams in the days following the caucus. And who, as the son of a minister, is a compelling presence at pulpits around Las Vegas. And who played college soccer and was senior class president. And who is unfailingly polite. (More absurd resume padding: In 2007 he was a summer associate at one of the most prestigious law firms in New York City and did it on crutches because of a soccer injury, and he's starting a community development bank with some Yale Law friends.)

At First African Methodist Episcopal Church in North Las Vegas on Sunday, Green, in a conservative blue suit, grooved to the fast, virtuosic performance of the choir. Then when the Rev. Ralph Williamson introduced him and gave a taste of his bio, the crowd nodded their heads in deep approval. He stood poised in a front pew.

"Hello, church," he said, which is the proper greeting at A.M.E.

"You know, these are turbulent times. We are in the midst of an escalating war. Economic reports show that we aren't producing jobs at the rate we should. More than 47 million Americans don't have health care. And here in our community children are senselessly shooting one another. And yet, despite these trials and tribulations, I know that we are on the precipice of great things - that we are on the verge of triumph. My friends, I know that we, as a people of faith, can visualize a brighter day. When others see turmoil we see an opportunity to uplift; when others see conflict we find synthesis; and when others look down we stand up!"

The crowd responded: "That's right."

"All the great social movements of American history began in the church - from the banning of the scourge of slavery from our shores to the enfranchisement of women to the civil rights movement."

Mmmhmmm, said the crowd.

If Obama himself had been there, it's not clear he would have won any more caucus votes than 26-year-old Green did.

Green is the son of a minister from suburban Washington, D.C., raised to believe in lifting up the needy through God, good works and good government.

He considered the clergy, but his father told him to reconsider, for his life would never be his own. (Wait for it: Who's Green's best friend? His father.)

So Green reconsidered and chose a vocation that requires nearly the same commitment.

Although most people think of politics as a dirty profession of compromised principles and vain pursuit, Green, like Obama, believes, perhaps naively, that it's noble. He even avoids using the word "politics." It's public service.

Green won a prestigious scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis, where he played soccer for two years before two concussions ended his career.

After graduation he worked for the campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the failed 2004 Democratic nominee.

"When I left the Kerry campaign on that dark day, I said, 'I'm done.' I was disappointed in my abilities," he said, as if he had personally lost.

"But I guess once you have field in you, it never leaves you," he said, "field" being jargon for the arduous work of building a political organization one house at a time.

Political analysts say field organization is the key to winning a caucus, in which voters must show up at a specific location at a specific time to support their candidate.

Though enrolled in law school last year, Green ran religious outreach for the campaign of now-Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley in the majority-black Prince George's County.

Never before, though, Green said, has he been so committed as now.

"He would make a decision that would cost him reelection but do it anyway because it was the right thing to do," Green said of Obama.

So, Green was the first to arrive at the office one day recently and was on his laptop going over his team's numbers from the night before to get ready for a conference call: How many phone calls, how many contacts, how many commitments to caucus for Obama?

The same day, well past midnight, he sent an e-mail to a reporter that included a quote that was apparently popular in the Green household:

"Perfection is unobtainable, but it is the quest for it that makes life worth living."