Hillary to Students: Don't Vote

Full disclosure: My day-to-day job is in organizing young people, including college students, in politics: motivating them on campaigns, educating them on issues, getting 'em out to the polls.

From this perspective, there is little more infuriating than hearing the Democratic frontrunner for President knocking the right of students to participate as Hillary Clinton did recently, parroting a typically rightwing argument that student voters are somehow illegitimate voters.

The reason for this, of course, is that college students in Iowa are clearly trending for Barack Obama. That apparently means that now is the time for Hillary to start indicating that they are unfit for the democratic process. But what is clear is that any Democratic nominee will be relying heavily on the youth and student vote -- and students ought to think twice about helping out a fairweather friend.Here's reality. In 2004, voters under the age of 30 made up 17% of the electorate -- and they voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush by a margin of 54 to 45%. In 2008, odds are they'll make up a larger share of the electorate and they may go even more Democratic.

By every indication, until recently, Hillary's operation understands this. That's why she gave a speech at Wellesley recently imploring students to get registered and to vote. That was before her recent change of heart, when she apparently decided that students should not register and vote in the Iowa caucuses because, you know the caucuses are for "people who live [in Iowa], people who pay taxes [in Iowa.]"

Newsflash for the Senator from New York: Students do live in Iowa (at least nine months a year) and they also pay sales tax there.

Luckily, youth organizations are not taking this lying down. The Young Democrats of America are encouraging young Iowans, including college students, to caucus. Rock the Vote has launched Rock the Caucus to get young Iowans, including students, to participate in both the Republican and Democratic caucuses.

Hillary Clinton's campaign needs to ask itself: is declaring war on a key Democratic constituency a smart way of winning the primary?