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.
According to the LA Times, student activists, universities, and state officials have embarked on an expansive and unprecedented effort to boost student turnout in the Iowa caucus –– responding to the early caucus date by convincing students that caucusing in their hometowns during winter vacation might dramatically boost their influence over the process.
Colleges and universities, such as Grinnell College, with especially large numbers of out of state students, are making special efforts to find housing for students on the night of the caucus:
Grinnell College students can bring their sleeping bags and camp out for the night in the school's gym. Iowa State is opening a dorm for two nights, and Drake University is considering providing housing.
"Our students are very active politically, and we wanted them to be able to exercise their voting rights," said Jennifer Krohn, dean of student life at Grinnell, where 87% of the 1,500 students are from out of state.
There have been a couple of interesting polls coming out of college campuses. On November 13th, the Brown Daily Herald (a student paper) polled students at Brown University. Their results:
Obama 37.5%
Clinton 18.4%
Edwards 5.6%
On November 15th, a similar poll was done by a journalism class at NYU of their peers and found similarly lopsided results:
Obama 40%
Clinton 20%
Giuliani 11%
For much of the year, the impression has been that Obama has an overwhelming lead among young people, and certainly all my own personal annecdotal evidence points to that conclusion. Obama has turned out massive rallies on college campuses in Boston and Austin, for just a couple of examples. And in terms of energy and enthusiasm, Obama's student organization has been up to far more.
However, nationwide, although there are few polls in the 18-24 college-age range, most polls of the youth vote (18-29) show Obama trailing at least slightly. So why the discrepancy? Why the gap?
The roots of Students for Barack Obama are the stuff of legend:
In the summer of 2006, on July 7th, some eight months before Obama announced his run for president, Bowdoin College junior Meredith Segal created a Facebook group that went on to reach fully-fledged PAC-status before being rolled into Obama's campaign organization as its official student wing.
By February when Obama's campaign was actually launched nine months ago, Students for Barack Obama was already:
a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members and chapters at 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots student movement -- there's a director of field operations, an Internet director, a finance director and a blog team director -- in the presidential campaign so far.
Many of those student leaders are still involved in what is a fully-fledged student leadership. As of October 22nd, according to a campaign press release, Students for Barack Obama has more than 600 chapters on college campuses and high schools across the country.
In Iowa, because of a state law that young voters be able to caucus so long as they turn 18 in time for the November general election, nearly all of high school seniors will be eligible to vote. Students for Barack Obama has responded by organizing chapters at more than a third of Iowa high schools.
In all, by my count, they have chapters on at least nineteen college campuses and at a stunning 144high schools across Iowa, with new chapters being added daily.
In New Hampshire, Students for Barack Obama has chapters at all of New Hampshire's twelve college campuses with five full-time campaign staff members aiding student organizing efforts.
No matter which candidate you support, this level of grassroots organization among students bodes well for the future of Democratic Party politics.
