Desi novelists are renowned for their fantastical tales, so it’s only fitting that a desi was chosen as White House CFO. Gopal Khanna was plucked from obscurity in Minnesota as the Peace Corps CFO and trustee of a Hindu temple to become the latest fiction-spinner for the Executive Office of the President, managing a $750M budget. Three quarters of a bil for an office? That’s a lot of sticky notes.
With kids named Rohun and Rohini (and Hrithik?), he carries on desi parents’ all-consuming attraction to alliteration and risible regard for rhyming rubrics. It’s those damn storytelling genes.
Update: Word on the street is that Khanna has been pressing the flesh, converting D.C. desis to the dark side. The Imperial Guard has put out the Help Wanted sign. Ennis says, ‘Did you hear the rumor that he’s dropping the last two letters of his first name?’ Ah, now I grok the attraction.
Khanna reportedly whipped the Peace Corps’ finances into shape, but I’ve got no idea how he’s going to deal with being a marginalized minority. After all, it can’t be easy being the first fiscal conservative in the administration 😉
I heard him speak at some collection of the desis meeting in Boston – he gave quite a good talk, and the others who were there who had some experience with the peace corp seemed to think he was ok….and I had someone walk up to me at the end to tell me I really should call her up about joining the peace corps (she probably didn’t realize I was a pathologist and thought I was something good like an internist or surgeon).
Anyhoo, carry on trashing anyone who dares to leave the idealogical fold 🙂 And you know I’m just joking, right? You’re not gonna wield the Manish-scalpal on me just cause I said he gave an ok talk? That is allowable, as long as I agree that he must be a hack because an R is behind his name?
I leave the scalpel-wielding to pathologists. And since I’m vegetarian, here, have a side of tongue-in-cheek 😉
I tell you…with all these desi Republicans in the limelight nowadays, you would have never guessed that 90% of South Asians voted Kerry in 2004.
“you would have never guessed that 90% of South Asians [interjerection: a small sample of 2,600 out of ~1 million south asians contacted by what seems to be a asian american “activist” (read: left leaning?) organization :end interjection] voted Kerry in 2004″
p.s. the sample size makes me less skeptical than the admission of geographical skew (predominantly a new york, new jersey, michigan, illinois and virginia sample).
Good, because 2600 out of 1 million very likely gives you a normalized distribution….as discussed elsewhere there was no bias in the questioning methodology, and this particular question wasn’t a qualitative or ranking statistic…but rather a simple one: who did you vote for. Even a biased survey wouldnt affect the responses much with regard to that question. And it is by far the best poll data on South Asians available.
And it is by far the best poll data on South Asians available.
sure, but just because it is precise doesn’t mean it is accurate. i think my objection about the geographical skew stands.
I agree with Razib, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark. You’d expect to see somewhat more Republican party-line voting given the high numbers of entrepreneurs, small business owners and the famously conservative doctor demographic in the desi population. 10% is on par with the African-American vote for Bush.
here is a direct quote:
“”Nearly 11,000 Asian Americans in 8 states participated in the poll. 2,636 South Asian voters participated…South Asians were primarily polled in parts of New York (Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Richmond Hill, Floral Park and Jamaica in Queens; and Midwood and Kensington in Brooklyn); New Jersey (Jersey City, Edison and East Brunswick); Michigan; Illinois; and Virginia….”
(my emphasis)
of the places listed only “virginia” can be regarded as right/republican leaning. i am willing to believe most american south asians who vote voted for john kerry (as i myself did FYI), but i think it is likely that (for example) south asians in texas or georgia are more likely to be republican. people are influenced by their neighbors.
The poll was done in places featuring high concentrations of desis. The results are still useful but I concede it isn’t fully geographically diverse.
You win this round, but I’ll get you next time Gadget…next timeeee!! 🙂
Double disclosure: I work for SAALT from time to time as a consultant and when I worked at AALDEF, I helped conduct a couple of these polls in Floral Park.
I’ll admit that the 90% figure is hard to swallow on the face of it, but I don’t think this particular argument you’re making holds up well because, like Texas and Georgia, California was also not included in the poll. Figuring out the accuracy of the exit survey is probably a lot more complicated than assessing by state–population density is probably a better clue (in general, not just for desis). And I’ll bet there are splits by income, education level, generation (i think 2nd gen vote more conservative), gender, religion, etc.
I’ll admit that the 90% figure is hard to swallow on the face of it, but I don’t think this particular argument you’re making holds up well because, like Texas and Georgia, California was also not included in the poll.
i considered that. and i do think it holds up well saurav, 90% is an huge ass flip toward kerry. if it was 80:20 that would be 2X as many for bush. 70:20 3X as many voters for bush.
i assume the answer is complicated. california desis might be pro-kerry, but there are also lots of silicon valley libertarianish types like vinod. so who knows? well, that’s the question, since they didn’t survey them, and i objected because vurdlife offered this as evidence that “90%” of brown folk in the USA voted for kerry though there are a non-trivial number of brown republican politocos.
i’m not saying SAALT or whatever group funded this is out to rig it to make it look like browns are pro-kerry as much as blacks are. what i’m trying to say is that they sampled a group of states which lean blue, and highlight urban areas which lean even bluer. i’m sure funds were finite, and browns concentrated in places like new york are probably easier to get at than browns like moi who live in ruralish mostly white places where browns are atomized relative to each other (unless you are a motel patel). but we count too. i’m a realist, outreach can only reach so far and the last 10% might demand 90% of the effort, so i’m cool with not being reached.
finally, even if you assume that california is 90% pro-kerry, i common sense dictates that adding texas, georgia and all the small-town midwestern brown docs into the poll would still likely drop the kerry voting percentage since the “easiest to get at” portions were the bluest to begin with.
when i said “2X” and “3X” i meant proportionally of course.
I wasn’t quibbling with the argument that 90% might be an overestimate–my only point is that looking at it through a “red fish, blue fish” lens is probably not the source of it. In looking now at what I wrote, I probably could have been more specific about what part of your argument I was disagreeing with. I agree with your assessment that it’s more a matter of networks and who’s hard to reach and who’s not than anything else.
However, regardless of whether the actual number is 90% or 80% or 70%, I think the point that vurdlife was making is fairly accurate–which is that there a lot of prominent rightwing desis (jindal, dsouza, etc.), disproportionate to the voting sensibilities of their communities. that doesn’t mean they’re not “real” desis–but imo their politics don’t reflect the community’s interests, just its skin color.
it makes sense..it’s easier to become prominent as an educated racial minority “spokesperson”–particularly as a tokenized minority for the Conservatives like Michelle Malkin–than as someone who does grassroots work or even liberal work. That’s why you hear much less about Hamid Khan or
I think the point that vurdlife was making is fairly accurate–which is that there a lot of prominent rightwing desis (jindal, dsouza, etc.), disproportionate to the voting sensibilities of their communities. that doesn’t mean they’re not “real” desis–but imo their politics don’t reflect the community’s interests, just its skin color.
perhaps. i’m not particularly political either way myself, but, i think if i was a interested republican i would say it is more a function of the receptivity of the given party people of brown backgrounds? now, i don’t really believe that, but though you mention d’souza and jindal, do note that the accountant in question here is a hindu, while other brown republicans (i am thinking of the woman in north carolina who is a mixed sikh-christian marriage) are also outside of the judeo-christian pale, which works “against type” as far as republicans go.
and of course there are differences of opinion about “community” interests (and which community? as you have said in the past yourself, there are issues with project a pan-brown community of interests).
Actually, most Desis voted Liberal in 2004. And despite high profile Conservatives like Gulzar and Nina Grewal and Rahim Jaffer, they will again in 2005.
Godamn Americentric blog. Freakin’ USonians.
So desi Americans generally voted against the Iraq war, and British Asians voted for? Freakin’ imperialists 😉
How come SM completely missed the “Grewal tapes” episode in Canada? Another desi politician making his mark?
We didn’t miss it. We just get flooded with many items to write about. The education curve involved in a a story about Canadian politics is not a simple task if we want to write a decent post on the subject. One of us might write one still but, thats the reason why we haven’t yet.