Pre-emptive ejection: Audience members removed at McCain rally in Cedar Falls

Lara Elborno, a student at the University of Iowa, said she was approached by a police officer and a McCain staffer and was told she had to leave or she would be arrested for trespassing.

“It was a very confusing, very frustrating situation,” Elborno said. “I said that I had a right to be there, I wasn’t doing anything disruptive — I was sitting, waiting for the rally to start.”

She said McCain staffers wouldn’t tell her why she was being asked to leave and when she got outside, she saw “a group of about 20 people” who had all been asked to leave.

…

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

Update 3: From the comments section of the Iowa State Daily:

Video interview of three UNI students asked to leave

Same students talk about another attendee that wasn’t made to leave

Margo Ralston 1 day 2 hrs ago

I am a UNI student and I was also one of the many that was asked to leave for no reason…they just told me that McCain staffers ask for me and the other two UNI students I was with to leave…no explanation. I have never protested at any McCain events and I was not doing anything but setting and watching the event peacefully. I also saw the republican girl crying as she was being kicked out…I feel as a student of UNI that was not being disruptive or has no past of being disruptive that I had a right to be there….the hole event was very disheartening.

Anne Johnson 12 hr 34 min ago

FYI, all.

I’m a 53-year-old library assistant and I was with Lara and the rest of the group that was coming to see McCain, and she didn’t make that up about the young Republican couple who were thrown out.

Update2: One DeusExMalcontent commenter thinks they were trying to avoid another Palin impersonation.

But another blogger thinks they went too far.

Update1: After posting the above, it was ironic to see the MSNBC headline, Do Republicans Have a Youth Problem?

Do Republicans have a youth problem?

A very ominous sign for the Republican Party is how Democratic-leaning these new and lapsed voters are. Not only do they back Obama by a 69%-27 margin, they also prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by a 2-to-1 margin, 66%-31%. And their views of President Bush? His fav/unfav among these voters is 14%-73%. Ouch. While Karl Rove had ambitious hopes of turning Bush’s presidency into a permanent majority for the GOP, this poll suggests that Bush’s lasting legacy could actually be turning off a new generation of voters. After all, consider what young voters who came of voting age during the past seven years might associate the GOP with — the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, the current economy, various political scandals (Jack Abramoff, Ted Stevens, etc.), and Bush. Speaking of the president, the White House released his schedule from today until Sunday, and get this — the sitting president of the United States will not be campaigning in the final week of the campaign. Amazing. In fact, as NBC’s John Yang notes, Bush hasn’t made a single public campaign appearance with a GOP candidate this cycle. He has raised money for them, some $150 million this cycle. But that’s down from the $186 million he helped raise for the GOP in the 2006 cycle.