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Valley Streamer finds path into national politics

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Christopher Ferrall returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., in 2008 with a gift for his son, Thomas — a souvenir that celebrated then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. The reticence with which the 11-year-old accepted it suggested a proclivity for conservative politics that guided Thomas, who turns 19 on Friday, to a position with Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential primary campaign.

Thomas has even greater ambitions for the future. “I want to be president,” he said, adding that holding elected office at the state level would come first.

The Kellenberg Memorial High School graduate is a political science major at the University of Dayton in Ohio. That made it convenient for him to join Kasich’s campaign. “It actually worked out pretty well that I was able to work for the candidate that I supported,” Ferrall said.

He traveled to New Hampshire and Michigan as a volunteer, and devoted many hours to canvassing neighborhoods and making phone calls. It was a real-time education in the massive effort required to coordinate a political campaign, including frequent interaction with people who supported different candidates. Some were rude, Ferrall said, but he “took it in stride.” There was much more about the experience that he found inspiring.

“It’s cool to see people rally behind a candidate,” he said of his fellow volunteers.

The work taught him the importance of face-to-face interactions, as opposed to more passive tactics, like advertisements and social media posts, he said.

Although Kasich dropped out of the race on May 4, Ferrall said he was proud of how far his candidate got. The experience gave him the opportunity to learn about Kasich’s accomplishments as governor. Ferrall also got to meet him, and even appeared on CNN, albeit in the background.

His father described him as a self-starter with deep convictions who is passionate about his interests, which include the Mets. Christopher, a federal probation officer, has more liberal political leanings, so Thomas’s staunch conservative ideology is all the more evidence of a personally driven passion. “He’s more of a black-and-white kind of kid,” his father said, “but I mean that in a good way.”

Thomas’s interest in politics transcends popular political trends — he once bought a “Reagan/Bush ’84” T-shirt. His mother, Monica Ferrall, is also more conservative than her husband, but it was her father whose political disposition was closest to Thomas’s. Unwavering in his beliefs, Thomas’s passion “makes for some interesting dinner table conversations” with his more liberal aunts, Christopher said.

Father and son work a block apart from each other in downtown Manhattan. Thomas is a summer intern at the U.S. Court of International Trade whose duties include the sort of menial tasks that come with many internships, but he gets the chance to interact with federal judges, and is learning what goes into litigating a case.

When he returns to Ohio, he will resume his responsibilities as president of the campus’s College Republicans — and as the spokesman for his class of Eagle Scouts. It’s a position for which he was selected from a group of 185 Boy Scouts who attained the rank in the past year. The accomplishment came 13 years after he became a Scout. He rose through the ranks with Troop 116 in Valley Stream.

“I can’t say enough about him,” Christopher said of his son’s drive. “I think it’s wonderful.”