Clinton Finance Committee Member Trashing Young Voters, Delegitimizing Iowa Caucus

In the wake of her loss to Barack Obama in Iowa, and defeat among younger voters by a margin of more than 5-1, Hillary Clinton changed her strategy and started to reach out to younger voters. The day after the primary, Clinton was quoted as saying "I'm running for president to reclaim the future — the future for all of us, of all ages, but particularly for young Americans."

Apparently, not all of her campaign surrogates are on the same page. Sacha Millstone, a member of the Clinton National Finance Committee and keeper of a large Clinton fundraising list, sent an email to her network earlier today in which she trashed young voters and cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Iowa caucus - in large part because of the overwhelming level of student attendance.

The expansion of the Democratic electorate is a good thing for all Democrats, up and down the ticket. It's pure pettiness and short-sightedness to denigrate such a large and newly engaged portion of the electorate just because they don't like your candidate. It's certainly not a way to win their votes, which Hillary must do if she's going to have any chance of defeating Obama. Clinton is in serious trouble here.

Here's the email (emphasis mine):

Hi all,

When I visited Iowa in early December and did some phone calling and canvassing, within two days it was obvious to me that our campaign had a big challenge. A very large number of Hillary's supporters were telling me that they supported Hillary and would vote for her in November, but they were not going to go to the caucuses. Old people, people who work night shift or 2 jobs, working moms, single moms all have a really hard time going to the caucus. These are our supporters. I was alarmed and talked with campaign staff and indeed the campaign knew in October that this was a huge obstacle for us. This is why I spent most of the month of December in Iowa and asked others to do the same. I felt that it was critical to pull out all the stops. The last two weeks my hope was that we could finish second. We tried very hard to convince our supporters to go to the caucus. About 70% of our supporters had never been to a caucus before. We told them that if 1/3 of Hillary's supporters did not go to the caucus she would not do well in Iowa. We trained them on the caucus. We organized rides and buddies for them. They got this message multiple ways throughout the month. There was not a single supporter that was overlooked. We had a huge contingent on the ground working on this and support from unions and EMILY's List. We got 70,000 people there when normally about 150K total participate. But it was not enough.

I was very surprised as I travelled around the state that I did not encounter any groundswell for Obama. For this reason I thought that Obama would come in third. Edwards was strong and I thought he would likely win. In the week prior to the caucus, many undecideds I spoke with broke for Hillary and Edwards. I did not find many breaking for Obama. I was in Creston, Ottumwa, Marshalltown, Iowa City, Dubuque, Fort Madison, and Mason City. I got the same story from every field organizer. They felt good. They felt our support was solid. They did not see movement toward Obama but there was movement towards Edwards and he was our competition. These field organizers were not in touch with one another so the fact that each told me this independently was significant. I was really surprised that Obama was so confident the two days before the caucus. There were many undecideds still. It was not at all clear what the outcome was going to be. I found it very disturbing that he was so confident.

The caucus itself was shockingly unorganized. The email below from a friend of mine says it all. In Iowa you can simply show up and vote. No one even checks your i.d. I was at a middle school in which about 7 precincts met. There was mass confusion – many people had no idea what ward or precinct they were in. There were no computer facilities to check – I happened to have a rough map I let people look at. I'm sure many were in the wrong rooms. In the precinct where I was no one was at the door to the caucus room making sure that people registered. People could just walk in. At the registration table there were 2 people checking in 122 participants. Many participants were brand new and clearly not known to their neighbors. There were people in the room who were not residents and it was the honor system whether they voted or not. The person who was chair and ran the meeting was inexperienced and he did not have control of the crowd. The rules were not followed. When an experienced person tried to have the rules followed, people got very confrontational with him. So it was a mess. In the precinct I attended Hillary won, Obama was second and Edwards was third.

My opinion is that the Iowa caucus system should not be any kind of litmus test for our nominee. Unfortunately it is one. The campaign always knew Iowa would be tough for us – they thought it would be one of our toughest states. We have our work cut out for us, that's for sure.

From my friend:

I wish there were time for the real story of Iowa to emerge.

The Iowa caucus process is a broken and flawed process. It was designed to allow for the active party Dems generally known to one another to assign delegates and was not designed to handle a flood of students and independents. It was a system designed to give more power to Dem party loyalists. In the tension over whether the candidates should be chosen by the party or by the general public, the Iowa caucus was designed to give the party the advantage. For this reason, the Iowa system failed on Thursday.

I saw a tv interview of an African American radio talk show host who was very close to the Obama campaign (Anderson Cooper 360, I think). He described how the Obama campaign felt as if they had gotten away with something by getting students to the caucus. It was as if they had taken advantage of a loophole. He said: "in past caucuses it was perceived that the student vote would be seen as unfair, but hey it is on the books so the Obama campaign took advantage of this technicality." I notice that Axelrod in press spin today in Post is making point to say that Obama won among "women, men and liberals, and those under 45. I bet if you took out the student vote in Iowa, this would not be true. " It is as if Axelrod wants to downplay the student vote. He wants to spin that the Iowa victory was broad based. But how broad-based can a vote by less than one tenth of the number who will vote in general and made up largely of students be?

Another problem with flooding the caucuses with students is that the system was not designed for this. The system is an honor system for attending the caucus in the precinct where you reside. This presumes a small group and general knowledge of the expected attendees (party Dems in a given precinct). When students flood in this honor system does not work. The Iowa rules allowed students to participate in the caucus if from another state and attending college in Iowa and register for the first time at the caucus. Students are a transient group living in dorms and apartments with roommates. Giving an address is not the same as for permanent residents. The honor system does not work in the same way for students as for more permanent residents. In addition, because of Illinois's proximity to Iowa, the Obama infrastructure could identify Illinois residents who attend college in Iowa and organize them to vote in the Iowa caucus.

When the caucuses are flooded with high turn out a system that is already a loose honor system moves into chaos. Many of even the loose Iowa caucus guidelines were not followed. Observers are allowed but are not supposed to be involved in persuading voters, but this happened in many caucuses because of the chaos. In many caucuses the numbers did not add up (the number registered at the door did not match the number who voted overall even). The chaos of the sites made it very hard for older participants to hear and understand options for viability and second voting. Most sites did not have microphones and the precinct captains could not be heard.

It is (actually was a long time ago) time to get rid of the Iowa caucus (actually too late).

"Clinton is tough. Tested by rough politics and personal trials, she's demonstrated strength, resolve and resilience.. ..The times demand results. We believe as president she'll do what she's always done in her life: Throw herself into the job and work hard. We believe Hillary Rodham Clinton can do great things for our country."

Des Moines Register Endorsement 12/16/07

Sacha Millstone
National Finance Committee for Hillary Clinton Campaign