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:
The mailer, ironically enough featuring Hillary Clinton, says:
Then why would you let 1,000 east-coast college kids elect your State Representative? They're not from here. They won't stay here. But they're voting here.
The awful thing is that this mailer is by no means unique. Efforts like this are not uncommon.
Yesterday I wrote about the Clinton campaign's assertion that Iowa college students from out of state are "not Iowan" and while they might have a legal right to register to vote, they don't deserve to caucus. A few readers questioned my outrage. I want to make clear just why I found the comments so frustrating.
A number of excuses have been offered for these comments. One is that Clinton is questioning Obama's tactics and not his actions --- this is demonstrably false. Two separate campaign spokespeople stated, first that "the Iowa caucus ought to be for Iowans" and then:
We are not systematically trying to manipulate the Iowa caucuses with out-of-state people. We don't have literature recruiting out-of-state college students. We didn't bus in folks from out of state to the [Democratic party's Jefferson-Jackson dinner]. We didn't bring in out-of-state activists to the Heartland Forum.
Her campaign is obviously implying Iowa college students from out of state are not sufficiently Iowan. They are not offering the Obama campaign friendly advice, they are challenging the legitimacy of these college students participating.
Second, others have suggested that college students casting ballots in their campus communities is somehow "merely legal" and that operating just inside the rules is somehow in itself Rovian, regardless of context. Not only is this argument vapid, but a college student registering to vote in their community is by no means "just barely" inside the law. There's nothing shady about this process. She is exercising her full, explicit, and democratic right, and nothing Obama has said differs from what you would find on the Iowa Secretary of State's website.
Third, there is the excuse that Clinton is somehow looking out for their welfare by encouraging them not to register. This is a scare tactic noted by Rock the Vote and is almost always misleading:
By and large, students vote in local elections without a problem. But sometimes, local elected officials or candidates will see students as a threat. They may try to suppress the student vote by giving students false or misleading information about their residency status, threatening students with loss of student aid, or even threatening prosecution for voter fraud. These threats are blatantly false, but often students are confused about their rights and may not fight back.
Fourth, there is the misleading charge that Obama is somehow "making" or "forcing" students to change their registration with this pamphlet --- when students should be able to decide for themselves. Take a look at Obama's deeply 'coercive' language:
If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood.
But why do I think Clinton's comments require such a sharp response?
First of all, this is, in itself, a needlessly divisive tactic of inciting two social groups against one another with little short-term political benefit but potential long-term consequences. Neither the Clinton nor the Dodd campaigns are challenging students' legal right to vote on campus, they're merely challenging its legitimacy. This serves no purpose other than to breed further resentment between students and their communities and to discourage students from registering.
And this isn't just my opinion. Neutral observers have weighed in, especially expressing astonishment at the campaigns' claims that encouraging students from out of state to vote is somehow unprecedented. The American Prospect's Dana Goldstein called Clinton's comments "gross" and noted:
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.
Mike Connery of Future Majority called it "advocating voter disenfranchisement" and wrote:
Rather than spending their time whining that the Obama campaign is out-organizing them among college students, Dodd and Clinton should get to work energizing their own student base.
Edwards supporter desmoinesdem, of Iowa's Bleeding Heartland wrote:
If the caucuses were on January 21 instead of January 3, this wouldn't even be an issue. Many students from other states caucused in Iowa City, Ames, and other college towns in 2004. There is nothing unfair about that.
I would hope that all the campaigns are trying to identify college students supporting them and trying to encourage those students to come back to campus to caucus, if their home towns are outside Iowa.
If Obama wins the caucuses, Hillary's going to have to come up with a better excuse.
And Iowa Independent's John Deeth called this a "display of Iowa nativism" and arguing "the thinly veiled all-but accusations lower the already rapidly declining Democratic dialogue."
But my real point is this: Clinton's and Dodd's reinforcing inflammatory imagery of hordes of college students pouring across the border should be seen as reinforcing the stereotypes and misinformation that have led to outright legal challenges to a student's right to vote --- not in the distant past, but recently and repeatedly.
In Maine this last February, a state representative offered a bill that would have banned student voting:
A student is not a resident of a municipality where the student resides if the student lives in housing owned by an institution of learning while attending the institution unless the student lived in that municipality prior to attending the institution.
At William and Mary college in Virginia, a local registrar targeted students with a questionnaire and attempted to disqualify students based on their license registration or student housing address.
There are similar stories from 2004 playing out in Texas, Arizona, and Delaware. And these local officials have offered some version of the same argument that Clinton and Dodd are using now at the state level.
They're not from here.
They won't stay here.
They're not one of us.
They don't belong here.
The Democratic Party is better than that. We believe in principles of inclusion and civic engagement. We shouldn't betray those principles in the heat of a primary fight.