CE Week #13: “Iowa shucks youths, harms civic pride”
Susan Estrich
Creators Syndicate
November 24, 2007
C ollege students won’t be voting in the Iowa caucus this year. Or, at least, most of those who would have won’t now, and those who still can might not know about it yet. No matter how you look at it, it’s a mess.
The problem is the calendar. The Iowa caucuses used to be in late January, which meant students who attend college in Iowa could caucus in the cities and towns where they go to school. Since you have to register at least 11 days in advance, that left time to do everything after Christmas – or to register before break and vote when you got back. When this campaign began, all of the candidates had college coordinators and were making appearances on campuses in the hopes that it would encourage students to register to vote and get involved.
Now, it’s hardly worth the effort. The caucuses have been moved to Jan. 3, so Iowa can stay ahead of New Hampshire, which wants to stay ahead of South Carolina, not to mention Michigan. The problem is that students who go to college in Iowa aren’t back by Jan. 3.
You can’t caucus by absentee ballot. It just doesn’t work that way in a process that requires people to go to different corners of the room depending on which candidate they support, and then regroup if their chosen candidate doesn’t have enough people to meet the threshold for a delegate in his or her corner, and so on until the final division. Even in this virtual world, it’s hard to figure how you could do that without being there. And it wouldn’t be Iowa.
But is it Iowa if you disenfranchise an entire category of voters in the never-ending quest to be first?
There was, in fact, no great scheme by the rules writers in the sky that deemed Iowa should go first because it represents a shining light of democracy in action. It was an accident of scheduling back in 1976, caused by conflicts at the convention center months later that, working backward, required the precinct caucuses to be moved forward. But once Iowa became the launching ground for Jimmy Carter’s long-shot candidacy, and once Iowans realized what a good thing they had going in terms of candidate attention, media coverage and the general boost both to the economy and the issues agenda that comes from going first, the fight was on to preserve that special status. There’s an entire school of thought that says agriculture policy in the United States has been distorted for the last 30 years by promises made by candidates to win votes in Iowa.
What Iowa sold – to the rules committees, the media and the rest of the country – was not its peculiar issues positioning, but its special brand of civic democracy. Iowa might not be representative of the diversity that is America, but it was said to represent a tradition of commitment to politics, of real participation and small “d” democracy that made it a better place than most to “vet” the candidates up close before they move on to the bigger, more impersonal, less participatory arenas where campaigns are won and lost mostly because of money and media.
But how do you square that tradition with a decision to sacrifice college students to the altar of going first?
Of course, students who live in Iowa and go to school out-of-state, or in another part of the state, can caucus with their parents on Jan. 3. But that assumes they knew enough to register to vote at their parents’ addresses at least 11 days earlier – that is, the minute they got off the train or plane or out of the car. It assumes they didn’t register in the place where they go to school and, considering themselves adults, now may think they “live.” It assumes more than most of us who spend our time trying to convince young people to vote would ever choose to assume, at least voluntarily.
I believe colleges have an obligation to teach their students civic literacy in the same way we teach computer literacy. I spend a great deal of time giving speeches on campuses, and this is often my subject. I regale them with tales of my early days, doing get-out-the-vote in Dade County, Fla., where the heavily senior citizen population will literally go by stretcher if that’s what it takes to cast a ballot. Why do you think Social Security is the sacred cow, the third rail, in American politics? It’s because old people vote and young people don’t, I tell them. And it’s your own fault.
Except in Iowa, that is.
Ouch, that gave Obama a bruise huh?
Wow sometimes I think the stupid politicians or the parties can’t think 2 seconds ahead. They see the present and then they see the election but they don’t stop and think about what they are doing and how it will affect the outcomes of current things. I think that it is hypocritical of the politicians to say, YOUTH GET OUT AND VOTE… and then make it so they can’t participate.
I don’t understand the whole concept of the order of the primaries and caucuses. I believe there needs to be stricter laws so that this DOESN’T happen. This is rediculous. This seems to bring us back to the barbaricness of the thirteen states. This reverts our democracy back to the days of the Declaration of Independence. I understand that the voting is left up to the states. That that is a strict power delegated to the states. But maybe there needs to be certain rules. Like I mentioned before in an earlier post maybe they should tell them that once they pick the date they pick the date. They cannot change more than once, and all dates must be in at the same time a month and a half or so before the actual date of the primary or caucus. I have no idea if that would help or not, but I think it would. I don’t even know if those regulatory laws would be acceptably constitutional.
Hopefully they get this BS sorted out, but it makes me feel like I’m at my favorite teams football game and my teams has crappy defense. I want to yell at those stupid people that set the dates and ask them WHAT are you thinking? (sorry analogy due to the fact I went to the Griz v. Terrier game today and Grizzles lost in an extremely close game due to the fact that there defense couldn’t protect or cover the sides of the field… )
Okay, I think I’ve gotten all my rant about this article and football out.
It seems that we would want college students to vote in a caucus because 18-24 age group is the least likely group to vote for president or attend a caucus. That sounds great that students cared about caucuses and that coordinators would go and get the words out to college students. Well I have to say that since Michigan and South Carolina want to go sooner in the line up of caucuses and primaries they are messing up the classic Iowa caucus. They want to be actually impacted with the date that they pick, when all they are doing is messing everything up.
It is also hard to do it any other way because if you are not physically present it just will not work. It might be that Michigan and South Carolina are disenfranchising an entire category of voters by pushing their dates a lot farther ahead and bringing Iowa to forget about all of the students who usually are apathetic when it comes to voting. If states wouldn’t be pushing there dates so much we wouldn’t have this problem. I think that if we want to have students get more involved in the vote we can’t have states pushing up the dates.
Besides being pissed about the hypocrisy of politicians (which I am, but I feel it would be redundant to discuss is after it was so eloquently put by Vanessa) I am interested in how this is going to affect one, Barack Hussein Obama.
It will lose him votes, yes. He’s supposed to be the young gun-slinger, standing in opposition to the entrenched wheeling and dealing of the hill, the wheeling and dealing exemplified by our crafty former first lady (She’s she’s she’s: She’s Crafty) Hillary Clinton. The “young” Obama has a large part of his constituency among the hip young kids, with their rap music and their teen-aged/slightly post teen-aged angst/doe eyes. These kids won’t be able to vote for Obama. Damn. But; I think this actually could help Obama.
The perception among the democratic voters is essentially the one that I just outlined- Obama’s support is mostly among the young. This move on Iowa’s part is going to drastically lower expectations for Obama. This is a state that, to a certain extent, the winner of is expected to win the nation. However, this move will, especially to professional political minds, selectively invalidate the states results. So Barack, who wouldn’t win anyway, can not win without it hurting him among the party elites.
But it could help him even more. If he is to surpass expectations there is no ceiling to the benefits. First, he gets the momentum of surpassing expectations. Second, he proves to the voters and the party that he can win without the kiddies. In a strategist’s mind this turns to thoughts of lust, thoughts that help to win for Obama the ever-important check-mark (which, mind you, is now squarely in Clinton’s column) of winability.
In Conclusion: Disenfranchisement is bad.
It just goes to show you how much front loading has become a problem. Especially if you think about it from a youth perspective (which all of us would). They are neglecting to involve the youth…again! Seriously being young sucks. You’re too old to be with mom and dad but still too young to be taken seriously. Thank you old people!!!! It frustrates me how when people see younger folks driving they assume their bad drivers or when old people see kids hanging around their obviously up to no good. Come on guys, have a little faith for once. I mean we are the future of tomorrow, encourage us, support us, help us, but please don’t tell us once again that were all screw ups and we don’t matter. Because we do! Seriously if one candidate were to win the younger vote and encourage the youth to get out there, they could potentially blow the competition out of the water!! Seriously I have a feeling, and maybe it’s just a feeling, but I think our generation is going to show every one up. I think when the 2008 election rolls around everyone may be in for a big surprise!
Mallory Brown