Out in Greene County, Iowa

Yeah, sure, it’s college football’s bowl season, but in the real game, Vanderbilt is winning

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
January 1, 2008
COOPER, IOWA

Some of you are crowing about your colleges’ football teams playing in bowl games. And some of you are bragging about your colleges’ basketball teams getting off to good starts, and I can do that, too, as my Vanderbilt Commodores are 13-0 in men’s basketball and 9-4 in women’s basketball.

But as my former Des Moines Register colleague David Yepsen, the paper’s chief political columnist, always says, “politics is the real game for adults.”

And let me boast that in this game of politics, my college kicks your college’s butt.

While your school’s softies were out howling last night – when 2007 was turning over into 2008 – there were about 45 Vanderbilt students, along with three or four professors and staff members, who boarded a bus at midnight on the campus in Nashville, Tennessee.

They began a 12-hour ride to Iowa, where for the next three days they will volunteer in the presidential campaigns and generally immerse themselves in the whole experience of the Iowa Political Caucuses. An advance contingent of 10 or 11 other Vanderbilt students arrived in Des Moines a few days ago.

Spencer Montalvo, a 19-year-old freshman from Powder Springs, Georgia, told me on New Year’s Eve that he hardly knows what to expect in Iowa.

“I hear it’s like 13 degrees with wind chill factors way below zero,” he said. “Is that right?”

Right, I said, with lots of snow and ice, too.

Montalvo said he’s making his first trip out of the much warmer South.

“I’d only been out of Georgia one time in my life – to see Rock City in Tennessee – before I decided to go to Vanderbilt in Nashville,” he said. “And now I’m on my way to Iowa!

“I love politics, so I’m really looking forward to this, but I am worried about the cold weather. I was still wearing shorts around campus in December. And the coats I had were like jackets and sweaters. But when I went home for Christmas, one of the presents I got was a winter coat.”

Just in time, I told him.

He said the 55 or 56 Vanderbilt students coming to Iowa “are a pretty good representation of the whole student body. We’ve got people who are freshmen, like me, all the way up to students in the law school and other graduate schools.”

Their trip is sponsored by the university’s “Office of Active Citizenship and Service,” which didn’t exist when I was at Vandy from 1965 to ’69. Of course, in the late ’60s, the streets were our office of active citizenship.

But this “OACS” program is now giving Vanderbilt students great experiences and opportunities. Last January, it helped sponsor another “rolling seminar” with students, faculty and staff going on a bus ride along the route of the 1961 “Freedom Rides” to Montgomery and Birmingham in Alabama. Some of the original “Freedom Riders” rode along, giving lessons of living history about that important episode in the Civil Rights struggle.

The idea for the bus trip to the Iowa Political Caucuses took root four years ago when Vanderbilt political science professor Christian Grose, who teaches American government and politics, came to Iowa to see what our caucuses – the first step in the nation’s presidential election process – are all about.

He thought it would be a good learning experience for students to come to Iowa early enough to volunteer for a couple of days for whichever candidate they prefer, talk with professors and among themselves about what they were learning, and then attend caucuses even if they couldn’t actually participate in them. They’ll likely have the opportunity to meet many of the candidates, as well as the heavyweights of American political media.

“This is a rare opportunity for our students to see the caucuses up close and gain a better understanding of the steps in the process for selecting the next president,” Professor Grose said.

Vanderbilt began offering the trip to students late in the summer, when they were registering for fall semester classes. But then a complicating factor developed. The caucuses were originally scheduled for mid-to-late January, but when they were moved earlier in the 2008 election calendar, it meant most college students would still be on Christmas break when the caucuses happen – which is this Thursday night, January 3.

“I found out about the opportunity to go to the Iowa caucuses during freshman orientation when I heard the people from the Office of Active Citizenship make a presentation,” said Spencer Montalvo, the freshman mentioned earlier. “I thought, ‘This is something I just can’t miss!’ I got interested in politics in high school, worked for the Young Democrats and was in the ‘junior councilman’ program in my hometown. When I heard about the trip to Iowa, I thought it’d give me a chance to see if politics is really something I want to do for a career.”

He said he was bummed when the caucus date was moved early, and he realized his Christmas vacation would wind up being only one week long. “I finished my first semester finals the Saturday before Christmas and went home to Georgia,” he said. “I came back to campus New Year’s Eve.”

He said the students have paid $75 apiece, and faculty and staff paid $150 each, for their share of the Iowa caucuses experience. The university is picking up the rest of the costs, which includes rooms at the Downtown Holiday Inn in Des Moines and meals.

No academic credit is being awarded to the students for their participation, but Montalvo says the learning experience will be invaluable, “especially to somebody like me who is passionate about politics.”

He said he will volunteer in the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York. There will be a Vanderbilt student working for nearly every one of the presidential candidates in both parties.

Most of the people on the bus trip got together before Christmas and had “a practice caucus, just so we could see how one really works,” Montalvo said.

They divided up by which candidates they preferred, and Illinois Senator Barack Obama had 16 students, Clinton had 14, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards had six, Arizona Senator John McCain had four, and three each declared for the other leading Republican candidates former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Montalvo tells me the Vanderbilt student body “is probably a little more conservative than on a lot of college campuses, and that’s one of the reasons I decided to go to school here. I lean left and vote Democratic, and I thought being at Vanderbilt, I’d learn how to articulate and defend my positions.”

He said that “generally, college students are relatively apathetic about national politics, with a few of us really passionate and motivated about it. Occasionally, some issue will come up, and everybody will get interested in it.

“My gut tells me that in the presidential race, the student body would lean toward Barack Obama,” he continued. “He really does well on college campuses, and he’s gotten people interested.”

For the long bus ride to Iowa, the students gathered as many of the presidential candidates’ TV commercials as they could find, put them on a DVD to watch “and even came up with some spoofs you can find on YouTube, too,” Montalvo said. They also are bringing along politically-themed movies such as “The American President” (from 1995) and “All the President’s Men” (1976).

The Vanderbilt students, professors and staff are all gathering for a dinner Wednesday night, January 2, at the Downtown Holiday Inn, with Professor Grose speaking on, “Are the polls right? Predicting the winner of the Iowa caucuses.”

And I will be there to lead the singing of our fight song “Dynamite!” and maybe even the “Vanderbilt Alma Mater.” It has long been my contention that you should not be allowed to graduate from a college until you can at least sing its fight song, if not its alma mater, too, and thus some of these Vandy students will probably be learning a little more than just politics in Iowa.

But as an alumnus, one who loves politics and loves Iowa, too, I can’t tell you how proud I am of my university for offering its current students an opportunity like this one. It’s something colleges across America should be doing. Vanderbilt is leading the way.


You can reach the columnist by e-mail at chuck@Offenburger.com.