THERE is, among the grubby temp offices and junk-food cartons of every campaign, the smart kid, a k a the policy wonk, and if you think she's going to go into detail about her job, telling how hard she worked to make sure the candidate knew the stats and the issues, recalling the time she saved the candidate by catching this error or that in a speech, forget it. That would not be smart.
Study, if you will, the examples of proper policy-wonk-speak from Neera Tanden, the policy director and deputy campaign manager for Hillary Rodham Clinton:
''When we first started, I used to do a lot of work getting her up to speed on issues, but she's a really knowledgeable person.''
''The debate prep requires a lot more work for her, getting her ready, though I have to say, she knows so much, so much.''
''I keep a lot of facts and figures about what's happening in the state, but it's always a humbling experience. She's exceedingly well versed.''
How smart is the smart kid in Hillary Clinton's Senate bid?
From all appearances -- including a law degree from Yale -- very.
It was Ms. Tanden, signing on with the exploratory committee in July 1999, who moved to New York from the White House and worked with Mrs. Clinton, researching and developing policies. She was 29.
It was Ms. Tanden -- with, she wants you to know, her staff of six -- who challenged Rick A. Lazio's first major policy proposal, a tax-reduction plan, in August. In two hours Ms. Tanden prepared a detailed financial response. Finding the facts and figures to defend her candidate's position is a large part of her work.
Watching Ms. Tanden in action at the Hillary 2000 headquarters on 34th Street is not permitted.
But you can accompany Ms. Tanden, informal, fast-talking, connected to her cell phone as to a body part, across the street to the restaurant she frequents these days, the cafeteria in Macy's basement. She works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Her husband hates her work, Ms. Tanden allows in an unguarded moment. She makes a quick, politic adjustment: he doesn't hate the work; he hates the way she brings the work home, the stress.
Stress is a word you hear a lot from Ms. Tanden. She was speaking to the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison about a job when she signed on with Mrs. Clinton; maybe that would have been less stress, she says.
Does she mind being called a policy wonk? ''I'm pretty wonky,'' she says. ''I'm wonky because I know about the Section 1115 waiver, I know they help community health centers. New York State pioneered community health centers. At the White House I felt like I was politically inclined for a policy person; on the campaign I feel I'm more wonky.''
Explain the difference.
''A wonky person cares about the policy and how it affects people, regardless of the politics.''
As for how the wonk became a wonk, she's got a ready answer:
MS. TANDEN was born in the affluent community of Bedford, Mass. Her parents, who immigrated from India, had an arranged marriage. (''It tells you something about arranged marriages, because they got divorced when I was 5.'') Ms. Tanden's mother, on her own with two small children, went on welfare after the divorce. The family received food stamps and, as Ms. Tanden puts it, ''we had Section 8 vouchers for our housing.''
''The reason I'm so active in politics -- literally the reason I've devoted so much time to politics and public service -- is because of my background,'' Ms. Tanden says. ''I personally feel that if I didn't have the good public schools of Bedford, I wouldn't be the person I am today. My mother was on welfare for a couple of years, then she got a job as a travel agent. Finally, years later, scrimping and saving, she was able to buy a house. I know it sounds totally corny, but she really instilled in me a great deal of, y'know, sort of a desire to serve. The Democratic Party, the policies that the Clintons and Hillary believe in, I feel like a living example of someone who benefited.''
Ms. Tanden went to the University of California in Los Angeles and became involved in politics on the Dukakis campaign, where she met her husband, Ben Edwards, an artist. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1996, she worked on the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign in California. She went to the White House, first in the press department, then as an aide in the domestic policy office. In the wake of the Columbine massacre, she worked closely with Mrs. Clinton on school safety issues. ''I think after that she saw I could handle stress.''
There is one subject Ms. Tanden insists she never researched for the campaign: Mrs. Clinton's lack of popularity, for a time, among educated women.
''I'm happy it's turned around,'' Ms. Tanden says. ''It's always been surprising to me. If she met everybody, they would have a totally different impression.''
She herself has a very fond memory: Mrs. Clinton gave her a wedding shower at the White House.
''My mother was there,'' Ms. Tanden says. She stumbles over her words a little, emotion making bumps in syntax, even for a wonk. ''She, as an immigrant, with me first-generation and working there, she was ecstatic to come to the White House.''