The battle for the Democratic nomination is very much a battle of demographics. Hillary Clinton has marshaled the support of Latinos. Barack Obama has African-Americans. Clinton has lower-middle-class blue-collar voters. Obama has highly educated professionals. But Obama also has a stranglehold on one key constituency — college students. One poll shows that Obama leads the 18-24 age group 71-29 over Clinton. The support for Obama among the youngest voters has translated to the Stanford campus. The main Stanford Obama Facebook group has 1044 students; “Stanford Students for Hillary” has 81.

It’s tough being a Hillary supporter on a college campus. I interviewed a variety of public Hillary supporters on campus, and their experiences tended to be uniformly negative. Obama supporters were often dismissive or aggressive. While most Obama supporters are clearly not inclined to engage in aggressive political tactics, the lack of substantial alternatives to Obama on campus entails a veritable echoing chamber. One Hillary supporter complained that some Obama supporters were extraordinarily self-righteous and could not comprehend supporting any other candidate. Many Hillary supporters also seemed surprised at the level of anti-Hillary vitriol on campus. One had posters on his door torn down repeatedly. Another told some Stanford student activists she was supporting Hillary, who yelled back, “That bitch!” It’s unclear whether they were deriding the supporter or the candidate.

The anti-Hillary sentiment translates even to Stanford administrators. Dean of Freshmen and Transfer Students Julie Lythcott-Haims is a well-known Obama supporter and delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Until recently, she was a member of a Facebook group entitled “Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary).” Lythcott-Haims left the group after I emailed her about it, commenting, “I have had no indication that the ‘Stop Hillary’ group is participating in the mean-spirited activities you described, and that I despise. I left the group because I do not want my actions or intentions on behalf of Obama to be misconstrued.”

Obama’s ability to appeal to college students is certainly impressive. In a campus culture that embraces and emphasizes racial and ethnic identities, Obama’s mixed-race background is compelling, more so than the feminist appeal of Hillary. Race is a sensitive subject, however. One Hillary supporter complained, “It’s like we have to go underground with our support at Stanford lest we be labeled...racially insensitive.” Another says of Obama supporters, “They assume that any liberal, forward-thinking student would automatically support the mixed-race candidate...I don’t understand why Hillary doesn’t receive just as much celebration for her woman-ness as Barack does for his mixed-race-ness.”

While Obama’s ethnic background is treasured and lionized, Hillary’s history-making identity as a woman is often derided or dismissed. On a racially sensitive campus, gender has nowhere near the same cache. One Hillary supporter comments, “A majority of attacks against Hillary (by Stanford students) have been derogatory slurs about her appearance or her personality.” The double standard that Hillary is held to in the national media — essentially behaving the way the men do, but being treated differently for it — seems to carry over to Stanford students’ political attitudes. While it would be impossible to dismiss a mixed-race student for supporting Obama, several female Hillary supporters I interviewed have been dismissed by other students with statements like “Well of course you would be! You’re a WOMAN!”

What is remarkable about the louder Obama supporters on campus is the remarkable confidence of their views. Part of this is due to the lack of a critical mass of Hillary supporters on campus. Obama is significantly younger than Hillary Clinton; most college students don’t remember Bill Clinton’s presidency. And his rhetoric of “We Are the Change We Have Been Looking For” is appealing to students confident about their ability to change the world, and ones who don’t have to worry about health care and gas prices. While certainly not true for all Obama supporters, or even most of them, his campaign has engendered an extraordinary sense of confidence and self-righteousness in some. Many Hillary supporters now feel left out of the campus politics dialogue, which is uniformly pro-Obama as a matter of course. Obama supporters may eventually realize the long-term harm of alienating Hillary supporters on campus — it poisons campus politics — but there’s no indication of that so far.

Email Stuart Baimel at sbaimel "at" stanford.edu.