I wondered a while back about whether the Nevada primary had lived up to expectations. By and large however, I think it didn't:
The hope was that bringing the candidates to Nevada would encourage them to talk about issues addressing Western states and Latinos. This never really happened. Unlike in Iowa, where candidates unleashed elaborate ethanol production schemes and brushed up on their knowledge of agricultural issues like hog farming, there was never really an opportunity to do the same in Nevada. Candidates instead came to Nevada with the programs and framed candidacies that had carried them through other states.
No one took up grazing or water rights, the unsustainable growth of Las Vegas (as the Gleaner points out), mining regulations (at least not recently), gambling restrictions, or problems within the Native American community --- or at least there was no real discussion of them.
On the same note, I've often wondered why candidates haven't more directly addressed issues more pressing to young people. Especially Obama, who spent ten years as a college professor, and of course himself spent years in college and law school, could credibly address more specific issues facing college students.
Obviously, there are lots of reasons candidates avoid doing this. First, getting specific on policy has a tendency to please some voters and frustrate others. Obama did release some proposals to support the Nevada mining industry, frustrating environmental groups. Second, students, just like Latinos, African-Americans, teachers, labor unions or any other constituent group, care a lot about issues like the Iraq war or Sudan that don't necessarily directly impact them.
That said, when it comes to addressing issues present in the lives of young people, candidates have mostly focused on broad topics like financial aid and college loan scandals, but I think they could go farther.
As evidence for the hunger for this kind of specificity, I'd offer the widespread attention that a brief aside from Obama received in Texas. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune all blogged the appearance and Obama's statement:
Count Barack Obama, who once taught classes at the University of Chicago Law School, among those who sees a conflict of interest in professors who assign mandatory reading and then receive royalties when students purchase the books. [...]
"Books are a big scam," Obama said. "I taught law at the University of Chicago for 10 years, and one of the biggest scams is law professors write their own text books and then assign it to their students."
“They make a mint. It’s a huge racket,” he added.
I actually view humanities professors assigning their own books as far less expensive a problem than math and science textbooks that release a new edition every couple years to prevent students from using used editions, but I still think candidates should do more of this.
Young people will be more inclined to vote if they feel like more is at stake, if they feel like elections make a difference in their own lives.
Last weekend, tourists in Las Vegas were greeted by the sight of Ron Paul supporters parading down the Strip, chanting:
We’re not just the Internet. We’re flesh and blood.
Could this serve as the motto of the 2008 campaign? The election when online social networks proved that they exist, by out-fundraising traditional party elites, by helping create surging turnout by consituencies long dismissed by party insiders, and by spawning effective grassroots organizing across the country on an unprecendented scale.
Just before the Iowa caucus, the Clinton campaign tried to spin an impending loss in Iowa as the result of illegitimate voting by college students. On the stump, Bill Clinton sounded ominous tones about college students pretending to be Iowan for a day and then voting again in their home state primaries.
The results however were disastrous. Confusion reigned among Clinton campaign volunteers about whether or not they should be encouraging Iowa college students from out of state to caucus.
In the end, the Clinton campaign ended up suppressing no one's vote but their own, losing the Iowa youth vote by 45 percentage points --- 11% to 56% --- in an election where young people tripled to make up 22% of caucus-goers.
Now, on the eve of the Nevada caucus, the Clinton campaign is again betting against voter turnout, making encouraging statements about a lawsuit that would have shut down nine caucus locations and disenfranchised tens of thousands of shifts workers just hours before the caucus --- with little chance to make other plans to participate.
And again, their own campaign seems confused by the mixed messages.
Biden-turned-Obama-supporter Transplanted Texan (former chair of Dartmouth for Biden) has this story on MyDD:
The Clinton people have been virtually nonexistent in Hanover. The College Democrats held a debate between campaign student leaders last night, and the Clinton campaign tried to send a staffer instead. When the DCD told them no dice, they threatened not to send anyone - a hollow threat, it turns out, as a student was eventually chosen. This makes me question what Ann Lewis said on MSNBC moments ago: that they Clinton campaign has corrected its lack of efforts to reach out to younger voters in Iowa.
They didn't have a student leader on campus they felt comfortable entrusting the task to? Kind of reminiscent of the plant at Grinnell. It all just leaves you with the sense that they're not interested in hearing from student voices --- that message control trumps engaging and empowering students.
Maybe they sensed the kind of audience there would be. Here's the straw poll after the student debate last night:
After the debate, the College Democrats administered a straw poll of the audience members. Barack Obama won the poll, with 65 percent of the vote, while Governor Bill Richardson, D-N.M., came in second with 17 percent. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., came in fourth behind former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., garnering only 4 percent of the vote.
Over 150 Dartmouth students plan to volunteer for the Obama campaign today, some six hundred attended the campaign rally this morning, even though it was held at 9 am. Not bad for a campus with only 4,000 students.
Transplanted Texan also gives a report on what it was like to vote in his campus-area precinct. He thinks turnout will be heavy.
In Iowa, you're allowed to participate in the caucus so long as you'll be turning 18 in time for the November general election. That means that nearly all high school seniors are eligible to caucus, some 38,500 of them across the state of Iowa.
Although much attention was paid in previous elections to the college vote, little effort has been made to reach out to high school students. The Obama campaign has set up an unprecented network of high school chapters:
That's 40 percent of the state's public high schools, and it translates to thousands of teens who say they're committed to caucusing for Obama. The group at Hoover High has about 25 active members. [...]
It's a significant pool: An estimated 38,500 high schoolers are eligible to caucus in the state's 1,784 precincts, including in rural areas where a handful of unexpected participants can sway the results. That's comparable to the combined student populations of Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.
These groups of high school students are able to engage their peers. Professional campaign staffers stop by to help coordinate. And all of this effort counts:
Kader, who's met Obama twice and says his local student field representative visits the school regularly, argues that it's not just Obama's relative youth at 46, symbolism or his stances that she finds appealing.
''I think most younger people are supporting him because of how much attention he's paying to us,'' she said.
There are 21,000 college students in Iowa originally from out of state. Many of them will be visiting with family over the holidays. Since many college dorms are closed, and classes won't restart until later in January, many of these students don't have a way to return to Iowa to exercise their right to caucus and have their say in the selection of the next President of the United States.
Young Voter PAC, a national organization supporting the participation of young people in politics, is raising funds to house students who want to come back early, organize carpools, and pay for transportation.
Why?
Because our politics work better when young people are involved too. Please consider making a small donation.
At Grinnell College, only 13%, or about 200 of Grinnell's 1,500 students, are from Iowa. That leaves some 1,300 students from out of state (many of whom might be international students) to convince to come back early to caucus, given that the college does not reopen for spring semester until January 18th.
The local chapters of College Democrats and Young Democrats of Iowa have been hard at work to "manipulate" the caucus, in the words of rival presidential campaigns, by, gasp, arranging carpools from places as distant as California and New York to get students back in time for the caucus.
Chapter President Alec Schierenbeck expects “well over 100 students” to return to caucus on the Democratic side. Campus administrators have arranged to open a gym for students to camp out in their sleeping bags:
Sarah Mirk, a Grinnell student from California, envisioned a utopia for a young lover of politics. “Dozens of students sleeping on the gym floor, unwinding from long road trips and talking politics,” she said.
Obama has by far the strongest campus organization, but the New York Times noted:
Presidential candidates who have strong campus organizations include Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, at the University of Iowa, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, at Grinnell.
A reporter from the Des Moines Register watched Wednesday's GOP debate with an AP US Government class at Central Academy, a high school in Des Moines. Most the students she spoke to were for Obama:
Before the debate, I talked to another group of Central Academy seniors — Conor Crawford, Aaron Glynn, Erma Fetic, Susannah Stephens and Eric Hall. Only Crawford was supporting someone other than Obama.
When I asked if there were any Republicans in the group, Stephens pointed to Crawford, a Clinton supporter.
Second, Bill Clinton visited the University of Iowa on Monday and drew a crowd of only 200, drawing observations that he may be losing his draw among caucus-goers. The room was mostly empty.
Even more remarkable, according to Iowa Independent, who spoke to many in the crowd, most of the students at the event were there to hear Bill Clinton speak. Few in the crowd were interested in voting for Hillary:
I found this fascinating: Clinton spokeswoman Mo Elleithee (who made the comments two weekends ago about Obama passing out literature to out-of-state students being a systematic effort to manipulate the caucus) sent this to Ben Smith:
While she was a student at Wellesley, the voting age was 21. HRC turned 21 less than two weeks before the 1968 election. After turning 21, she tried to register only to learn that she had missed the 28-day registration requirement.
Clinton was once a victim of strict voter registration requirements... I just thought it was interesting given that Bill Clinton seemed to be arguing at Grinnell that same-day registration makes it too easy for students to be Iowans for a day and then go back to vote in their home state, instead of considering their registration with greater seriousness of purpose, I suppose.
In other words, Hillary Clinton was disenfrachised as a student by the same hurdles under discussion in Iowa today.
Over the weekend, Biden and Richardson announced that they do not support the right of Iowa students from out of state to caucus. Dodd has had four different positions in the span of as many days. The Clinton campaign seemed to retract her earlier comments and then notsomuch.
What is so shocking is that so few in the Democratic Party establishment and no one else in the Democratic primary field has weighed in on behalf of the utterly unproblematic, long-held progressive position that students have every right, and should be strongly encouraged, to register to vote. How hard can this be?
This has nothing to do with the horse race, this has to do with potential Democratic Party nominees abandoning principle and throwing young people under the bus to spin a loss in Iowa. This is no longer isolated to the foibles of individual candidates, this is turning out to be a broad failure of the Democratic primary field as a whole.
Harvard's Institute of Politics recently conducted a survey of youth voters aged 18-24 that confirmed some of the things we've been speculating about here on One Million Strong. I'll defer to Mike Connery's great analysis on Future Majority, which should be required reading for all of you, but I just wanted to let you know about a couple of the most important points. First, the poll shows a tight race for the 18-24 year old vote:
However, at the time this poll was conducted, national polls were showing a twenty point lead for Clinton. So there was a thirty point gap between preferences in national polls and among young people.
But here's where it gets really interesting. The internals of the poll show that Obama has a two-to-one lead among college students, while Clinton seems to lead among young people not in college.
Also, Clinton also has a one-point lead among young women, and is crushed among African-Americans --- putting to rest two of the convetional wisdom theories about the strenth of her youth support:
Obama leads Clinton, 44%-23%, on college campuses, but Clinton leads Obama, 38%-31% among those who never attended college;
Obama leads Clinton, 37%-28%, among Whites, 62%-25% among African Americans, but trails 54%-20% among Hispanics;
Obama leads Clinton, 40%-28%, among men; Clinton leads Obama by only one, 37%-36% among women;
Obama leads Clinton, 51%-26% in the Midwest and 42%-29% in the East, but Obama trails Clinton by 9 in the South and by 6 in the West.
Intriguing is also Clinton's lead among hispanic youth. Where does this come from? Obama has also yet to catch on in California and the West, perhaps in part because of Clinton's lead among Hispanic voters --- although it's hard to guess which is causing which.
Even more interesting, the survey found significant differences in candidate preference between owners of landlines and owners of cellphones:
By a statistically significant margin, Hillary Clinton does better among young voters with landline telephone access (leads by 5) than she does with voters who do not have landlines (trails by 13) and maintain only cell or VOIP service (a significant and growing segment of the electorate).
In other words, traditional telephone surveys of the public might be understating Obama's support among young people.
The poll also showed growing optimism about the effectiveness of political activism. All in all, good stuff. Go take a look.
Last week, we saw a fairly astonishing display of doublespeak from Clinton and Dodd on the topic of whether Iowa students originally from out of state have the right to caucus.
We've talked a lot about the impact of the student vote in Iowa, in part because of the fact that it isn't possible to vote absentee in the Iowa caucus, and some students will be away on vacation.
However the role of the student vote in New Hampshire came up yesterday on Blue Hampshire, since colleges there will also still be on break (with the exception of Dartmouth). elwood tracked down some of the dates:
Keene State: 1/20 Plymouth: 1/23 or so UNH: 1/22 FPU: 1/22 Dartmouth: 1/7
During the last election, in 2004, the New Hampshire primary as held January 27th, after students had returned. What does it mean that many will still be off on break?
Students in New Hampshire can of course vote absentee. And it isn't clear whether New Hampshire is a net importer or exporter of college students. There may in fact be more students from New Hampshire who study out of state home for the holidays than study in state and are home for the holidays out of state.
Why does this matter if you can vote absentee? It doesn't, though it does matter these students much harder to get out the vote and contact to ensure that they've mailed their ballots. Second, college students are a great source of boots on the ground. The holidays on the one hand mean that some New Hampshire students will be out of town and dorms will be closed, but it also means that interns and volunteers from neighoring states like Massachusetts will be able to spend more time there.
Honestly, I thought they would toss out this charge last weekend and let it drop. It is so obviously wrong...
Clinton has now joined in personally, charging that Iowa college students shouldn't be able to register on campus. They don't live here, they don't pay taxes, they shouldn't be able to vote here.
In a jab at Obama’s efforts to encourage out-of-state students who attend college in Iowa to caucus, Clinton said the caucuses are only for people who live in this state.
“This is a process for Iowans. This needs to be all about Iowa, and people who live here, people who pay taxes here,” she told the Clear Lake crowd.
So now she's claiming that young people shouldn't vote in their campus community, because they don't pay taxes? I wonder how much sales tax the 21,000 out-of-state students statewide contribute to local communities like Ames, Iowa City, and Grinnell.
She even manages to cast aspersions that not only are young people carpetbaggers, but they're freeloaders. Students couldn't possibly have, you know, jobs and pay state income taxes, so obviously they shouldn't have the right to vote or join in making decisions that affect their communities.
Mike Connery received this statement from the Clinton campaign:
Senator Clinton has been working hard to engage the youth vote across the country and in Iowa. She hopes that all Iowa students who have made Iowa their permanent home participate in the caucus.
Creating confusion about "permanent" residence is a classic tactic, as noted by Rock the Vote, to try to dissuade young people from participating. Students, by virtue of studying and living in Iowa, have every right to caucus. There are no two categories here. Every Iowa student can participate should they choose.
The Senator from New York continues to deploy the language of those who would disenfranchise youth by insinuating that many students do not have the right to caucus in Iowa.
In November 2004, just days before election day, voters received this mailer (pdf) from the Iowa Republican Party on behalf of state representative Danny Carol, who later apologized but was defeated in 2006:
More reactions. The American Prospect's Dana Goldstein responds to Clinton's comments on the student voters in Iowa in a post titled "Yucky Stuff":
This is pretty gross. [...] Clinton's pander to Iowa old folks on this matter proves she has despaired of competing with Obama for the college student vote.
Campus progressive groups, including the College Democrats, have long made it a priority to register students to vote and encourage them to get involved in city and state politics where they attend school.
I imagine even Hillary's hard-core student supporters will be dismayed by this move.
The Prospect's Ezra Klein, meanwhile, sees this as an example of sudden panic on the Clinton side:
Till now, I've been immensely impressed with the discipline of their attacks. Everything -- everything -- was narrative based, dedicated to furthering impressions of Obama as inexperienced. Over the last week or two, however, the campaign has moved into a full-court press, attacking Obama on anything and everything, in the hopes that something will stick.
The University of Iowa in Iowa City has decided against opening student housing over winter vacation to accomodate students attending the January 3rd caucus. TPM's Eric Kleefield speculates that this is "actually a wild card that could help or hurt any of the candidates, and in fact stands to reward whoever has the strongest organization among students."
Kleefield goes on to argue that since the delegate count doesn't change regardless of voter turnout, the campaigns with the best organization will have their votes weighted more. This is probably playing a little fast and loose with the caucus math, since this can be exceptionally complicated and depends on the composition of each precinct.
In contrast, Iowa's other public universities, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University, will have space available for students interested in caucusing near campus.
One problem has actually been low student demand. Even at the universities offering housing options (including also Grinnell), campaigns have been working the phones to keep dormitories open, but not a lot of students have registered.
The University of Iowa will instead "refer students to the Iowa House Hotel, which is offering a special caucus rate of $49 per night for Jan. 2 and 3 for students coming back to caucus." It turns out that a majority of students actually live off campus anyway.
Even more interesting than the article are actually the comments following, in which one reader complains about students expecting free housing even though they don't pay taxes and don't deserve the right to vote locally:
These kids vote here and then go home and vote again! The amount they pay in taxes is very very minimal compared to the property owners and full time wage earners! So go try shoving your BS elsewhere!
The truth is they are NOT residents they are just passing through going to school here. And it isn't fair to the property owners to foot the bill for them to ride along and saddle us with their crap!
When Hillary Clinton chooses to reinforce these sentiments and stiru up resentment of students, it has real consequences. Shame on her.
Perfect timing. After visiting Iowa State University on Sunday, Obama will be headed on a two-day college tour through Iowa. He can hammer this point home now:
As Obama embarks on this tour, it's helpful to remember something.
This week, Hillary Clinton argued that Iowa college students, those who live and study in Iowa and have lived there for years, have always been able to participate, but come originally from out of state, shouldn't participate in the Iowa caucuses. If Clinton had her way:
At Grinnell College, 87% of students would be disenfranchised.
At the University of Iowa in Iowa City, 36% or 10,800 students would be disenfranchised.
At Iowa State University in Ames, 30% or 7,800 students would be disenfanchised.
All in all, 21,000 students who live and study in Iowa, according to Senator Clinton, should not be allowed to caucus.
Don’t let people tell you that you can’t participate. You are an Iowa student; you can be an Iowa caucus-goer, and I want you to prove them wrong when they say you’re not gonna show up.
Both the Politico and the Chicago Sun-Times are highlighting an older report about the Clinton campaign's efforts to bring out-of-state students back to Iowa to caucus. The co-president of Students for Hillary at the University of Iowa is an Illinois native:
And as reported earlier this year, the Clinton campaign was trying to organize students in a way we think is perfectly acceptable but obviously hypocritical considering her attack today.
But her student volunteers are working on contingency plans. Nikki Dziuban, a 19-year-old sophomore from the Chicago suburbs, is co-president of Students for Hillary at the University of Iowa. She says the original caucus date of Jan. 14 would boost student turnout because out-of-state students like her would be “more inclined to come back if it’s just a couple days earlier than if it’s right in the middle of break.” (Spring semester there begins Jan. 22.)
A co-chair of Students for Hillary, Sarah Sunderman will be home in Minnesota for the holidays, and will drive back to attend the caucus:
Sarah Sunderman, a senior at Iowa State University, said she will drive back early from her home in Minnesota to take part in the Jan. 3 caucuses. She is one of about 21,000 out-of-state students who attend Iowa's public universities. As a member of her school's Democratic student group, she sees the date as a challenge.
"It's a complex issue, but clearly it's harder when students are dispersed across the state to make sure they participate," Sunderman said.
Clinton supporters have challenged Sunderman's example, saying that she is actually originally born in Iowa and that she plans to remain in Iowa after graduating. I'm glad to see that they're inventing new criteria as they go along for who should or should not be allowed to caucus. It is patently absurd, not to mention unconsitutional, to argue that Iowa voters should have been born in the state or that they should sign a pledge to remain there indefinitely.
None of these students are doing anything wrong, and they have every right to participate. In fact, as these two examples show, out-of-state students can be heavily involved and deeply invested in Iowa politics, and the state should be happy to have them. The community will be better of because of them.
When Obama held a rally Sunday at Iowa State University in Ames, he immediately brought up the issue.
“Every Iowa State University student who lives in Ames is eligible to caucus. Understand that,” he said to several hundred students.
“Don’t let people tell you that you can’t participate. You are an Iowa student; you can be an Iowa caucus-goer, and I want you to prove them wrong when they say you’re not gonna show up,” he continued.
There are 21,000 college students in Iowa originally from out of state. Many of them will be visiting with family over the holidays. Since many college dorms are closed, and classes won't restart until later in January, many of these students don't have a way to return to Iowa to exercise their right to caucus and have their say in the selection of the next President of the United States. 
However, at the time this poll was conducted, national polls were showing a twenty point lead for Clinton. So there was a thirty point gap between preferences in national polls and among young people.
