Nothing 'wrong' with that--it's in the caucus and election rules for Iowa--it is allowed and not illegal at all. But it was a factor.
And he IS the Senator next door. IL and IA share some media markets. He's not an "unknown" in the region as a consequence.
It's the Gephardt effect. Mitt Romney is praying it will work for him in NH, as NH and MA share a border and some media markets as well. Mitt also vacations at his million plus dollar lake home in NH, and spent more time there than in MA when he was governor.
I went to school in Boston, with kids from all fifty states. They didn't consider themselves citizens of MA. They just didn't. They considered themselves to be college students studying in MA who actually were citizens of California, New York, Florida, India, wherever. But if they weren't from the city, they didn't claim they were just to vote. They did the absentee thing.
I'll wager most of those student caucusers aren't going to be anywhere near Iowa in ten years. They're not gonna settle down there. They are "citizens for now," temporary Iowans. But like I said, the state rules allow it.
This isn't a big surprise, either--it was talked about as a factor before the caucuses even happened, as well as in the post-caucus analyses. Some links:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/22/johnson.iowa.students/In an effort to keep tabs on students, the Obama campaign has spent the better part of this year collecting student supporters' cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/question_of_iowa_student_voting_flares_into_major_issue.php
For those of you who haven't followed this, the Obama campaign, which has heavily courted the youth vote, has been working very hard to persuade Iowa students who live out of state that they should register for the caucuses and support him. The Obama camp has distributed 50,000 copies of a flyer saying: "If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood."
http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/1323/youth-vote-seen-as-key-to-obama-win-in-iowa
Youth Vote Seen as Key to Obama Win in Iowa
Polls of last night’s Iowa caucusgoers all seem to point to the same bottom-line conclusion: The Democratic winner, Barack Obama, benefited greatly from a big turnout among young voters, who favored him by overwhelming margins.
Surveys of those entering caucuses, conducted on behalf of the National Election Poll—a consortium of media organizations, including CNN and the Associated Press—found that 17 percent of Democratic caucusgoers were in the 17-24 age bracket, while another 5 percent were ages 25 to 29. Obama received the support of 57 percent of caucusgoers 29 and younger, giving him more than five times as much support from this age group as Hillary Clinton, who received the support of 11 percent. Among the Democrats, John Edwards posted the second-best showing among under-30 caucusgoers, winning the support of 14 percent.
...Although the Iowa caucus polls do not distinguish whether those polled are college students, it appears that many out-of-state students enrolled at Iowa campuses did not heed suggestions from the Clinton campaign and a prominent Des Moines Register columnist, David Yepsen, that they stay away for winter break and leave the caucusing to longtime state residents. As the Chronicle reported last month, some colleges agreed to reopen facilities to house students who returned to caucus, and many students returned to the state to take part in the political event.