Should college students from out of state be encouraged to vote in the Iowa caucuses

The Clinton camp is very upset with the Obama campaign for encouraging Iowa college students from out of state to come back to Iowa to vote in the Iowa caucuses.

Barack Obama's highly unusual bid to get thousands of out-of-state students at Iowa colleges to support him in the caucuses has ignited a furor and is drawing charges of dirty tricks from Hillary Rodham Clinton's camp.

Obama has been making regular stops at the state's colleges, and urging people as young as 17 and 18 - many of them from nearby Illinois - to register to caucus as long as they will be old enough to vote on Election Day. No ID is required to take place in a caucus.

The Obama camp handed out 50,000 fliers on college campuses stating, "If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood."

That has infuriated rival campaigns and angered Iowans who say the first votes in the nation in the 2008 presidential race should be cast by Iowans - not kids from somewhere else.

Oh, come on! As if the Hillary camp wouldn't be doing the same thing if they thought that the college kids would support her.

Of course, it's not clear how many kids would come back on January 3, when dorms are closed to spend the evening at a political caucus when colleges might not open for several weeks. For example, Grinnell College won't begin classes until January 21 and the dorms will be closed. But I could see a bunch of kids thinking it would be a fun road trip to drive to Iowa for the evening and return home after the caucuses.

Personally, I don't see why students can't register to vote in the place where they go to college. They spend more time out of the year there than in their hometown. More of their money (or their parents' money) is going to the college and being spent in that state. They don't know where they'll settle after the election. If we're going to allow 18 year olds to vote, shouldn't they be able to decide where to vote if they legitimately fit the qualifications?

Given that they aren't likely to stop the Obama campaign and the numbers of students who might make that journey is probably rather small. But the Clinton people risk making her seem to be against a youth vote, not a standard position for a Democratic campaign. Perhaps they think they'll win the support of old-time Iowans who are thought to resent the young whippersnappers coming in to participate in their caucuses. Unless the kids are rude and disrespectful of the caucus procedures, Iowans might well enjoy seeing an infusion of younger voters there on caucus night.

The Hillary camp once again makes themselves look incredibly small by yelping about Obama's encouragement of college students coming to vote in Iowa. For a group supposed to be so expert at running an aggressive campaign, the Clinton people seem to be making lots of avoidable mistakes. They just can't handle the Obama phenomenon.