Student Caucus Flap Lowers Tone Of Dialog

Student Caucus Flap Lowers Tone Of Dialogue

Democrats spend a great deal of time messaging that they believe in counting every vote. The pain of the hanging chads still burns in their hearts, and the battle over photo ID’s to vote looms. Which is why it’s so disconcerting to see operatives for Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd attacking Barack Obama for encouraging students to caucus.

Sure, there’s an advantage for Obama in encouraging kids from Illinois who go to school in Iowa. Why do you think he’s pushing it? For the same reason Hillary Clinton is pushing casserole recipes at busy moms and Chris Dodd is campaigning with firefighters. There’s votes in it. The rules were set long ago, and Obama’s found a rich vein of potential voters to mine.

David Yepsen offered a column with the inflammatory headline “The Illinois Caucuses.” Seems the Des Moines Register’s in-house pundit is, ahem, concerned that Obama’s remarks encouraging students who go to Iowa schools, but whose parents live out of state, might, ahem, “risk offending long-time Iowa residents.” That display of Iowa nativism is sad coming from Yepsen, who normally takes every opportunity to note that Iowan’s insularity on issues such as English only, immigration, LGBT rights and young people doing fun stuff is a factor in our state’s slow to non-existent growth. Yet when it comes to the caucuses, he wants to lock people outside, even as he acknowledges that it’s perfectly legal.

The thinly veiled all-but accusations lower the already rapidly declining Democratic dialogue. "‘New Politics’ shouldn't be about scheming to evade either the spirit or the letter of the rules that guide the process,” said Julie Andreeff Jensen of the Dodd campaign. Invoking the image of Mayor Daley and the all-important Necro-American vote, she added, “That may be the way politics is played in Chicago, but not in Iowa." (Do we all know the old joke: "When I die, I want to be buried in Chicago so I can remain politically active”?)

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee offered a very direct “The Iowa caucus ought to be for Iowans.” So, what’s an Iowan? Why go after students when no one questions the voting rights of snowbirds? Thousands of senior citizens leave the state and live for four, five, six months of the winter in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Students live in Iowa for as much or, usually, more of the year.

“I was born here, and I am encouraged, not offended” at the idea of student participation, said Paul Deaton of Solon, a John Edwards supporter. He says that, because delegate allocations are set in advance and because student populations tend to be concentrated in just a few precincts, there may not be much impact. “If the out of state students caucus in the approximately 50 Iowa campuses I could count, they may win a larger percentage of the votes in those precincts and not raise the total high enough to offset the majority of people Yepsen refers to.”

“Iowa Students are in Iowa more than their home states; they pay tuition to the state of Iowa; they pay water and electrical bills to the city; they live, breathe, and study in Iowa more than home, and above all it is within the rules as stated by the Secretary of State,” notes Atul Nakhasi, the firmly uncommitted head of the University of Iowa Democrats. “They should fully participate and engage the political process of Iowa.”

The University of Iowa hasn’t helped the process, refusing to join Iowa State and UNI in opening the residence halls for the caucuses. Instead, they’re offering a $50 rate at the Iowa House hotel – while student’s own dorm rooms are locked and empty. The head of University of Iowa housing, Von Stange, offered a cold "We're not accountable to the campaigns. We're accountable to students," to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, a sharp contrast to Michael Hager at UNI: "We have to encourage students with civic engagement and to become responsible citizens. If we can help students do that, we are more than happy to."

“No presidential campaign in memory has ever made such a large, open attempt to encourage students from out of state, many of whom pay out-of-state tuition, to participate in the caucuses,” Yepsen wrote of Obama’s effort. But that’s not what folks on the ground say. “Getting out this vote is nothing new and has been done in previous years,” says long-time Johnson County Democrat Dennis Roseman. “What the Obama campaign is doing is completely legitimate. It is certainly not ‘recruiting out of state voters’. It is what every campaign does---get out the vote.”

The only real difference is that getting students back has never before been an issue because the caucuses were always held on a much later date. My first caucus -- and yes, I was a student and yes, I moved here from another state -- was in 1992, on the nice reasonable date of Feb. 10. In 2004, the caucuses were Jan. 19 -– the day before University of Iowa classes started.

But this year, the earliest caucus date in history makes it disproportionately difficult for the newest voters to participate. So, rather than campaigns and columnists pointing fingers at Barack Obama, we Iowans -- however long we've been Iowans and whoever we support -- need to remember why the student caucus question came up in the first place and aim our anger there.

Don’t blame a bunch of 20 year olds from Schaumburg and Aurora. Blame the Florida Republicans and, especially, Carl Levin and the caucus-hating Michigan Democrats. "Every state had an opportunity to apply for the early window," said Sarah Swisher of Iowa City, who serves on the DNC’s rules committee, and roughly 15 states did. But Florida and Michigan decided to play brinkmanship with the system instead of following the rules. Which is all Barack Obama is doing -- playing within the rules.

The tune will probably change later in the year. If Clinton or, in a much less likely scenario, Dodd, is the nominee, she or he will be counting on huge margins out of Johnson County, and will want the kids from Schaumburg voting in purple Iowa rather than safely blue Illinois.