Please give to The Capital Times Kids Fund.

Learn how the annual fund drive helps our community.

Candidates go hard after young voters

David Callender  —  2/14/2008 10:39 am

It was no accident that Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's first appearance in Wisconsin this week was at the Kohl Center in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

And even before Obama could get there, his rival, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, had already sent her daughter Chelsea on a two-day tour of college campuses around the state.

Both events drew big crowds of young people. More than 17,000 people, many of them students, filled the Kohl Center to hear Obama Tuesday night in the largest such pre-primary event in Wisconsin history.

Chelsea Clinton's appearance, meanwhile, was a prelude to at least two more events focused on campus voters, including an appearance by Sen. Clinton herself on Monday and an event featuring former President Bill Clinton Thursday.

The attention is flattering to many students casting a presidential ballot for the first time.

"I think it shows they're paying attention to us," said Nicole Neis, 19, a sophomore majoring in biology who said she is trying to decide between the two Democrats and is leaning toward Obama because he's come here twice -- once in October and again Tuesday night.

"I know Madison isn't the biggest city in the country, but it does show to me that he's willing to come out and talk to us," Neis said.

Young people -- especially college students -- will be among the most heavily courted voters in next Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary.

Unlike their peers nationally, who have often been written off as unreliable compared to older voters, Wisconsin students vote in large numbers regularly. And in recent years, those numbers have been critical to victories in some of the state's most hotly contested races.

"As a campaign operative, you look at where you can go to boost turnout quickly and that's college campuses," said Democratic campaign consultant Mike Tate. "If you can find a message that they can relate to, Wisconsin students vote."

Tate knows that better than most in Wisconsin. He headed Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's primary bid here four years ago, which generated heavy turnout at the UW-Madison and other campuses, though it failed to catch on elsewhere in the state.

Tate also led efforts two years ago to block a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Although Tate's side lost, student voters in several legislative districts helped unseat a half-dozen Republican lawmakers who backed the measure.

But the textbook example of campus campaigns in Wisconsin came in 1998 when U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin won her seat on the strength of voter turnout from the UW-Madison dorms -- which featured precinct captains on every dormitory floor. Those same students provided the margin of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold's re-election victory in a tight race against Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann.

Both Clinton and Obama are aiming at that student base in Madison and statewide.

In addition to stops in Milwaukee and Madison on Monday, Chelsea Clinton spent most of the following day hitting campuses in La Crosse and Eau Claire. At the same time on Tuesday, Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, stopped at St. Norbert College in DePere, just outside Green Bay.

The smaller campus stops make sense because while "UW-Madison gets a lot of the attention, there's a lot of voters to be had at UW-Whitewater, UW-La Crosse, Eau Claire, and elsewhere," Tate said.

Both campaigns say they are counting on students to help put them over the top next Tuesday.

Young voters have been particularly critical to Obama's campaign. An analysis of voting data by the New Voters Project showed that in all the states Obama won in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests, he was heavily favored by young voters. Clinton showed similar gains, but more narrow margins, among young voters in the states she won that day.

While both Clinton's and Obama's campaigns lay claim to the student base, Obama appears to be more aggressive in lining up their votes.

Obama is the only candidate with an office on the UW-Madison campus. In what Gov. Jim Doyle, an Obama supporter, called the "most unique campaign headquarters in the U.S.," Obama's campaign is being run out of Laundry 101, 437 W. Gilman St., a laundromat where students can buy beer while they wash clothes. The office is full of volunteers throughout the day as students come and go between classes.

Clinton's student volunteers, by comparison, have to be picked up on campus and shuttled to an office in the AFSCME headquarters on the city's far west side.

Heather Colburn, a spokeswoman for Clinton, maintained that students are "a key focus of what we're doing on the ground." She added that a Students for Clinton chapter has been operating on the Madison campus since June. The chapter sent students to help campaign in neighboring Iowa before turning their sights homeward.

At both Obama's rally and Chelsea Clinton's appearance, many students said they are eager to see Clinton, in part because of her status as the first major female candidate for president.

"I'd love it if she came here," said John Ostrowski, a 23-year-old double-major in English and philosophy at the UW-Madison who came to the Memorial Union to see Chelsea Clinton.

Ostrowski said he's leaning toward voting for Sen. Clinton, but he also likes Republican Sen. John McCain. Both score high with him for their foreign policy experience, but he said he also likes Clinton's universal health care proposal more than Obama's more limited approach.

Ostrowski also gave Clinton the edge when it comes to experience and attitude. While many in Tuesday's crowd said they were overwhelmed by Obama's personal appeal, Ostrowski complained that Obama "just comes across as a little arrogant, a little snobbish."

But at the Kohl Center, where thousands of students signed up via text message for campaign alerts, Laura Klein, a 21-year-old psychology and women's study major, acknowledged that supporting Obama had become the latest campus craze.

"It's totally cool. It's hip," she said.

dcallender@madison.com

David Callender  —  2/14/2008 10:39 am