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Democrats, GOP and Asian Voters

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Presidential Candidates Find the Model Minority

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EXCERPT #1

Probably no one was redder faced at what happened during a fund raising luncheon in San Francisco in February 2007 then Hillary Clinton. Reporters from Sing Tao Daily, World Journal and China Press were summarily turned away at the door with the lame excuse they represented the “foreign press” and the event was only open to local reporters. The three publications are highly respected and read intensely by legions of Asian-Americans in the Bay Area and beyond. They routinely cover a range of local and national issues. Clinton realized the goof. A spokesperson apologized, and a month later she hustled back to the Bay Area and met with nearly every Asian reporter she could lay her hands on at a special meeting.

She had little choice. The new political reality is that Asian-voters can help make or break a candidate, even a presidential campaign. The A-Team Democratic and Republican presidential candidates now know this. They did something in 2007 that would have been unthinkable a couple of presidential elections back. They worked extra hard to woo Asian-American voters. That was a stunning reversal of the past. A decade ago, Asian-American voters were concentrated mostly in California, Hawaii and New York. Nationally, they were a speck on the political chart and a bare afterthought to the top presidential contenders.

But in 2006, Asian-Americans numbered close to 15 million nationally. More than 70 percent were either American-born or naturalized citizens. The majority is English speaking, a significant percentage are college educated, business and professional persons. They are more likely to vote than Latinos. They make up an important voting bloc in a dozen states which include the battleground states of Missouri, Illinois, and Florida. The number of Asian-American registered voters has jumped in Nevada, Arizona, and California. These states are among the first to hold their primaries. A big win in any of them propels a presidential candidate onto the fast track to their party’s nomination.

This didn’t escape Obama. He didn’t shirk from blatantly playing the Asian card. Within days after Clinton’s meeting with Asian-American journalists, Obama issued a statement in which he gushed over Asian-American and Pacific Islander contributions to American society. He reminded them that they could consider him an Asian since he lived in Hawaii and Indonesia as a child. It played well. Obama almost certainly would play up his Pacific Islander childhood in campaign stump speeches during the campaign. His message was clear: Asian-Americans should back me because I’m the only candidate who is one with, if not, of you.

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EXCERPT #2

The tantalizing potential of Asian-American voters to help candidates win national elections is a potential plus for the GOP and a challenge for the Democrats. Unlike Latino voters, and even more unlike African-Americans voters, Asian-Americans vote in far bigger numbers for Democrats than Republicans. Still they are not knee jerk Democrats. In a national exit poll during the 2006 midterm elections by the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, with the exception of gubernatorial races, Asian voters virtually split right down the middle between Republicans and Democrats.

In states such as Oregon, which is a contested state, the number of Asian-American voters has leaped. Polls show that many Asian-Americans express no firm allegiance to either the Democrats or Republicans. That’s even more significant in a state such as Nevada. It has a burgeoning Asian-American population. In 2000 and 2004, Asian voters there slanted slightly toward Bush. He carried the state in both elections. The grim prospect for the Democrats was that the GOP could do it again in 2008. If it did, Asian-voters would be a big reason for it. To forestall that, it would take a concerted effort by the Democrats to sway wavering Asian-American voters over to the Democrat’s column.

EXCERPT #3

The Democrats sniffed political blood and moved quickly to score big with Asian-Americans. The sprint by the top contenders to nab the endorsements, ramp up their outreach teams, and hire coordinators was on in early 2007. Clinton didn’t stop at that. With much fanfare, she chopped up the country into targeted areas for her Asian-American voter outreach campaign. The Democratic presidential contestants also came to the dawning recognition that a one-size fits all approach to Asian-American voters was patronizing, insulting, and self-defeating.

The cultural and linguistic differences between Vietnamese, Chinese-Americans, Koreans and Japanese Americans, are nuanced and wide. A perfect example of this is Asian-American voters in Nevada. There are now thousands of Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese registered voters in the state. There are significant differences between them. Japanese-Americans have higher incomes, are older, less likely to be recent immigrants, and more likely to vote than other Asian-American groups.

Vietnamese-American voters are another divergent example. While Chinese and Cambodian-American voters overwhelmingly back Democrats in every state, Vietnamese voters don’t. In 2004, they gave Bush almost 80 percent of their vote. There were two compelling reasons for that. Unlike other Asian-American voters, many Vietnamese are refugees from communism. They lost their farms, businesses, and their personal possessions and many had to flee for their lives when the Communists took over South Vietnam. Any candidate who appears to be soft on communism will find the doors slammed shut on them. GOP candidates and elected officials are viewed as more reliable opponents of communism.

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