By Greg Sargent - December 12, 2007, 1:25PM It's been simmering at low heat for weeks, but now it's flaring up into a major issue: The campaigns of Hillary and Obama are exchanging heavy blows over the question of whether Iowa students who live outside the state should have the right to vote in the state's caucuses on Jan. 3.
Yesterday, Bill Clinton himself entered the fray, drawing a fresh round of attention to the issue.
For those of you who haven't followed this, the Obama campaign, which has heavily courted the youth vote, has been working very hard to persuade Iowa students who live out of state that they should register for the caucuses and support him. The Obama camp has distributed 50,000 copies of a flyer saying: "If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood."
The Clinton camp has responded to this gambit cautiously -- it has expressed support for the students' right to caucus, while also arguing that Obama's efforts to encourage out-of-staters to vote are heavy-handed, amount to busing in voters, and could skew the outcome. Reflecting this balancing act, Bill stumped yesterday in the state and said that for individual students, this was a matter of "conscience," adding that students should register if they consider themselves "Iowan."
Here's some video, posted by The Washington Times, of Bill discussing the issue with students:
No comments:
Post a Comment