Hillary, Obama play to different generations

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Mon Dec-24-07 07:45 PM
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Hillary, Obama play to different generations

Hillary, Obama play to different Iowa generations
BY GLENN THRUSH

WATERLOO, Iowa - When Hillary Rodham Clinton's volunteers and staffers stand at the back of their candidate's events in Iowa, they sometimes play a little game one observer called "Count the oxygen tanks and wheelchairs."

Barack Obama's Iowa troops have their own rituals in the days leading up to the crucial Jan. 3 caucus -- one of them is making sure the high school kids who swarm their appearances turn 18 in time to vote.

If the Clinton-Obama confrontation figured to be a clash of gender and racial pathfinders, it's turned out in large measure to be a generational battle. Obama is gunning for 80 percent of the under-21 vote, his advisers say, while Clinton is banking on a bedrock of middle-aged and elderly voters who make up the majority of caucus-goers. It's a struggle, at least in a youth marketing sense, that's taken on the generation-war vibe of the "Mac vs. PC" commercials.

"Politicians are usually playing to the older people because they're the ones who vote, and we usually get shunted to the background," said Bryan Carter, 22, one of several Northwestern University undergrads who volunteered at an Obama event in Waterloo earlier this month. "Barack Obama is the first politician to speak to my generation. Hillary doesn't speak to me."

Each camp has its own age-related preoccupations. Clinton's people are deeply anxious about the weather -- icy sidewalks = broken hips = stay-at-home seniors. Obama's staff is organizing a bus caravan from the Chicago suburbs, where many University of Iowa students live, to caucus points near the university's main Iowa City campus, a school official said. The dorms at Drake University, Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa will remain open during the first week of January, which could help Obama compensate for a winter break that could seriously hamper his turnout.

Iowa law allows out-of-state students who spend nine months of the year in-state to vote, but the Obama campaign's push to squeeze every vote from their ranks has sparked outrage from the Clinton camp, which accuses them of trying to "manipulate" the outcome.

Clinton has tried to maximize her demographic strengths too, albeit in a quieter, less controversial way, organizing handicapped-accessible vans and carpools to shuttle elderly Iowa voters who might otherwise be shut in by bad weather.

"None of these candidates can afford to be a Johnny One-note. All of them are appealing across-the-board, but they all have relative strengths and they are clearly targeting them," said University of Iowa politics professor Cary Covington.

Obama enjoys a more than 2-to-1 advantage, 41 to 19 percent, over Clinton among 18-to-44 year-old voters, according to a University of Iowa Hawkeye State poll taken in late October. His performance among younger voters was by far the best performance by any candidate in any age group.

Hillary Clinton's lead among older voters isn't quite as pronounced, but it's the highest of any candidate in the 45-and-older category at 31 percent.

Continue Reading: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-usiowa1224,0,6340959.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines