Bloomberg: Asian Voters Send a Message to Republicans

It's funny that some of you guys are arguing as it is the fault/mistake of Asian Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, Jewish Americans, etc. to be turned off by Republicans.

Well, whether YOU think they should or should not be turned off by Republican politics or not is not all that relevant. The fact is that Asians, Jews and Latinos are voting Democratic 3-to-1 and blacks are voting Democratic 10-to-1. Whatever you Republicans are doing, including putting some non-white faces on the GOP convention podium, ain't working. This is the reality you are facing. You can choose to either deal with it or keep on trying to "unskew" it in your mind.

 

I agree that I don't think the GOP has anything particular against Asians (except China) and I have seen Republican attempts first hand to try to attract Asians.

The problem though with the GOP is that they either unintentionally or reflexively and even knowingly at time play with racist rhetoric. That bit from O'Reilly lays it out pretty bare that the hard core support of the party does view whites as being producers and everyone else as being parasites.

 

Thank you Carl, you articulated what I have been trying to express. The fault lies with the party not getting the votes. The Republican response for years has been to get defensive, blame the boogieman and bury their head in the sand. Hell, Limbaugh is doing just that on the radio, claiming that 3,000,000 white male voters did not vote this election, that did in 2008 and thus the Republican party is good being the party of white males.

 

Guess what, that's a caricature you lazily accept without evidence. Your mindset is off.

It's extremely frustrating (and demoralizing) to have the other side vote against you because of some caricature, rather than that they disagree with you on the issues. The other side decides what you believe, rather than debate the beliefs you are espousing.

 

There is plenty of evidence. I am going to cite the article I posted in the other thread.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...the_republican.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2

[rquoter]

White people don't like to believe that they practice identity politics. The defining part of being white in America is the assumption that, as a white person, you are a regular, individual human being. Other demographic groups set themselves apart, to pursue their distinctive identities and interests and agendas. Whiteness, to white people, is the American default.

Yet Mitt Romney's election strategy depends on the notion that the white vote is separate from the rest of the vote, and can be captured as such. Back in August, National Journal ran a report on campaign math headlined "Obama Needs 80% of Minority Vote to Win 2012 Presidential Election":

Romney’s camp is focused intently on capturing at least 61 percent of white voters. That would provide him a slim national majority—so long as whites constitute at least 74 percent of the vote, as they did last time, and Obama doesn’t improve on his 80 percent showing with minorities.

Again, why are "minorities" treated as a bloc here? The story mentions no particular plan by the Obama campaign to capture the nonwhite vote. Instead, it discusses how the Romney forces hope to get a bigger share of white voters than John McCain did—by "stressing the increased federal debt" and attacking "Obama's record on spending and welfare."
...
This has been the foundation of Republican presidential politics for more than four decades, since Richard Nixon courted and won the votes of Southerners who'd turned against the Democratic Party because of integration and civil rights. The Party of Lincoln became the party of Lincoln's assassins, leveraging white anger into a regional advantage and eventually a regional monopoly. It's all very basic and old news, but it's still considered rude to say so, even as Republican strategists talk about winning the white voters and only the white voters.[/rquoter]

 

This one didn't help much either.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OTSQozWP-rM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

My personal take is that the Republican's strong stance against education and science is what is the primary driver of Asian votes to the Democratic party.

As an Asian who was taught that education was extremely important, whose parents spend a ton of money and time in order to guarantee the very best opportunities for me, how exactly can I vote for a party that demonizes what I have achieved and worked for as "snobbery" and "liberal elitism?" How can I vote to take away the educational opportunities that I was able to benefit from?

Much like the female vote, I believe that the Asian-American vote as it stands is structurally calcified against conservatives. Ivy League and other elite private schools specifically cap Asian enrollment, because their data shows that Asian graduates will give back less to the institution in alumni donations. Since these schools are traditionally feeder schools for Wall Street, big business and politics, qualified Asian-Americans are subsequently underrepresented in these Fortune500 companies, and massively underrepresented as CEOs, which limit the chance for big, splashy $10M gifts, justifying the enrollment quotas that these schools put down in the first place.

There is one major exception to this rule: Silicon Valley, which draws most of its employees from Stanford and the UC system, where qualified Asian-Americans dominate enrollment and post-graduation job placement. Is it any surprise that there are many more Asian-American CEOs in tech companies? President Obama has been described as a technocrat, a leader very invested in new solutions and a friend to tech companies. Companies dominated by Asian-Americans employees and executives, a population that is growing just as quickly as any other minority group.

Perhaps the Democrats never win whites in West Virginia again because they continue to beat up on coal mining. But I do think that second-generation, born in America Asians are a demographic that the Republicans will be hard pressed to capture.

 

I'm not disputing the perception isn't there, I'm saying it's invalid.

All the arguments about limited government, free markets, none of it matters because we secretly hate Asians or something. It just shuts the discussion down entirely.

So easy, so lazy, so effective.

 

this article provides no evidence of Republicans disparaging Asians

 

Perhaps you are right Commodore, but it is a problem the Republican Party has to address if they want the votes. Also, the caricature is not helped by some of your candidates.... it used to be that the Republican party had a tight reign on their candidates, and not so much anymore.

 

To be clear, it would be silly to assume that all Republicans are KKK-style racists-- simply not true. Even though the rump racist/xenophobic wing of this country mostly belong to the Republican party, I don't think they dominate the party, especially in the polite circles (for example, I doubt any of the recent GOP Presidential nominees are such rump racists).

However, the GOP has a tendency to be treat "diversity" as a bad word and want everyone to fit into "traditional" America (i.e. white, Christian (or "Judeo-Christian" in recent years), English-speaking, flag waving, capitalism loving). Asian Americans, for example, appreciate having government material printed in Chinese in addition to English. They also would prefer belonging to a party that welcome and celebrate Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and atheists among us instead one one who keep on harping about how America is a Christian nation and has members that want to outlaw abortion for all based on religious beliefs of the dominant Christian sects and even deny evolution.

 

An ad touting China as a rising superpower and more financially disciplined than the US is racist? Really?

Good grief. Have you seen Waiting For Superman? Do you know which party is touting education reform?

What Republican is doing this?

What Republican wants to deny people educational opportunities? Who was it that wanted to eliminate the DC voucher program? Oh that's right, Obama. Who kicked Michelle Rhee (an Asian!) to the curb for trying to reform education? Oh that's right, the Democrats.

You really think that's why Asian enrollment is capped? It's because Asians are not classified by the left as a disadvantaged minority. Without caps Asians would be over represented and those spots are needed for other racial groups to fill diversity quotas (but remember, the right is racist).

 

Yeah, the lazy Asians, Jews and Latinos and blacks are to blame.

Nobody says all GOP members hate Asians. However, Asians are often turned off by stuff like the GOP referring to undocumented immigrants as "illegals," the fact that GOP includes Donald Trump and Joe Arpaio in its midst, the fact that the GOP tends to talk endlessly about how this is a Christian country and wants everyone to fit into this "traditional America" instead of one that has some degree of cultural diversity.

 

Nothing secret about it.

 

No, the arguments (your post abovefor example) are lazy.

But you knew that's what I meant. Much easier to cast aspersions.

 

Isn't it funny that the GOP have not found a counter to such an easy and lazy argument?

What do you think can be done about it (and I mean to ask this seriously, not as a taunt)? I mean, you can sit here and stew about how effective such "easy" and "lazy" arguments are. Good for you, but it ain't gonna change anything.

 

I think Asians are neutral for the most part. It doesn't matter about the having the label of being Republican or Democrat. Both parties have something to offer and at the end of the day, they'll go with what they feel has more value to them. GOP is offering bread, Dems are offering rice. Both will feed you just fine but if they had a choice which one do you think most Asians would pick? The rich Asian men/women that could afford whole grain, sweet potatoes, yam, quinoa would most likely still choose the plain old white rice. Tradition is a strong quality in the Asian culture.

 

I am sure most of Asians in this country misunderstood the Republican party, because Republicans says so.

 

Maybe its because Asians are good at math, and Romney was offering numbers that don't add up. Marketing to dumb asses only gets you so far.

 

but that's not how they voted

 

Have to infiltrate cultural institutions (Hollywood, academia, media). Very difficult to do, they are dominated by the left. Brietbart always said politics is downstream from culture.

Need leaders willing and able to make the ideological case to these groups. Televised town halls are best because it avoids the media gatekeeper filter.

For all the stereotypes about GWB, he effectively connected with Hispanics and got a good amount of their support.