PORTLAND – From low-level GOP political hands while students at the University of Oregon a few years ago, Jill Hazelbaker of Salem and Tucker Bounds of Hermiston have shot up the ladder in the whirl of presidential politics to top jobs in the John McCain presidential campaign.

Now they’re running his campaign communications operations, trying to shape national news coverage of the race with Democrat Barack Obama.

The taxing pace of the job keeps Hazelbaker, 27, and Bounds, 29, from dwelling on how they got so far so fast.