Clinton Campaign Still Unsure on Student Voting
By Chase on Dec 9, 2007 in Hillary Clinton, Iowa Caucuses
On the eve of former President Bill Clinton’s visits to three Iowa colleges, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign remains unsure of whether the roughly 40% of Iowa college students who come from out of state should participate in the January 3 caucuses.
One student at Grinnell College, where over 80% of the student body is not from Iowa, received a phone call from Clinton’s campaign Sunday. The caller invited the student, a registered Iowa voter who is from Minnesota, to attend Monday’s 5:15PM event on campus with the former president. The student, who it should be noted is not a Clinton supporter, sent along this email:
The Clinton campaign called me today and invited me to the Bill [Clinton] event. They also asked who I was planning to caucus for and if I’d ever caucused before. So I decided to call them back and asked if they even wanted me to caucus.
I said, “I’m a Grinnell College student but I’m from Minnesota. Does Hillary Clinton want my vote?”
And the woman said, “That’s a complicated issue, hold on a minute.” So she put me on hold for about two minutes, then said, “I’m going to have our youth coordinator get back to you.” And she took my name and number.
I’m still waiting for them to tell me whether I’m worthy of caucusing for Hillary Clinton.
The student also provided the caller’s phone number, which traces back to the Clinton campaign’s Des Moines headquarters.
Former President Clinton is set to visit Iowa State University Monday morning and Grinnell and the University of Iowa Monday evening. (Notably, Sen. Barack Obama visited Grinnell and the U of I last week. Former Sen. John Edwards visited Iowa State last week.)
A week ago, the Clinton campaign criticized the Obama campaign for making efforts to recruit college students to return to Iowa from out of state to caucus. On Wednesday, they quietly issued a second statement from Howard Wolfson, Communications Director: “The Iowa caucus is so special because it is based on Iowa values. We believe that every Iowan and every student who is eligible to caucus in Iowa should do so and we hope they do.”
But that message may not have trickled down very far. As former President Clinton prepares to ask hundreds of out of state college students to support his wife tomorrow, her field organizers still don’t know if they deserve the right to vote. Classy.
If the former president takes questions at tomorrow’s event in Grinnell, this subject is likely to come up.
Chase Martyn observes and analyzes politics from Des Moines, IA, capital of 2008's first caucus state. He is also Managing Editor of the 
Yeah, word needs to get out about Hillary Clinton’s disrespect for voices of dissent and uncertainty among student voters, and the underhanded attempts to undermine Obama over the issue of his popularity with students. I’m a student, and I like Obama and Edwards way better than I like Hillary. For one thing, Hillary seems to disrespect and distrust all her dissenters, and now other candidates are expressing distrustful sentiments as well. This raises the question about whether each candidate actually trusts the Iowans (students or not) who ask us to trust them. Trust is a big issue in America and the world right now, and the answer to, “Can we really all trust each other?” needs to be a resounding YES!
In short, this dirty political ploy should be quashed by Iowa in no uncertain terms, one way or another. Clarifications need to be made to dispel all the divisive doubts raised by the candidates’ and campaigns’ responses to this issue. Doubts about Iowa’s laws and policies regarding student voters (in letter and in spirit), doubts about the welcoming warmth of Iowa’s people toward the students who are attracted to Iowa schools from other states, doubts about WHY we students think what we think, and doubts about the validity of the Iowa caucus results (particularly if Hillary the perceived “national front-runner” loses in Iowa) in the eyes of the nation. Iowans are seeing the candidates up close and personal and have good reasons for making the choices they make at the caucuses. Everyone else sees this stuff only through the sometimes-distorting lens of the media reports.
In short, this problem should be making the national headlines right now. I, a college student who came to Iowa from Minnesota (not Illinois), am seriously ticked off about this, and I just don’t understand why it isn’t in the news much! To quote Oprah, “Somebody ought to do something about that.” So … maybe you know somebody who can, since the students themselves are pretty overwhelmed by final exams at this moment? I plan to work hard over the winter break to help organize students to address this threat, so hopefully the students will be fighting back soon, once they’re no longer at such a disadvantage to do so. When they do, America needs to see it and no longer doubt that whatever the other failings of the American educational system, children eventually do learn to be thoughtful, fair-minded citizens.
Thanks for blogging about this issue!
Karen | Dec 11, 2007 | Reply
Speaking of Hillary Clinton:
There is bad news about her husband.
It is opined that Bill Clinton committed racist hate crimes, and I am not free to say anything further about it.
Respectfully Submitted by Andrew Y. Wang, J.D. Candidate
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
(I can type 90 words per minute, and there are probably thousands of copies on the Internet indicating the content of this post. Moreover, there are innumerable copies in very many countries around the world.)
_________________
“If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.” Off the top of my head—it came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
Wang | Mar 18, 2009 | Reply