Ok folks get ready! The political fiend in me is ready to pound out three political posts in a row tonight (with a dinner break in between) that I hope you’ll find interesting and can add to in the form of interesting comments/debate. First up, in the aftermath of Super Tuesday here is what we learned:
- Women voters break for Hillary
- Latino-American voters break for Hillary
- Older voters break for Hillary
- Asian-Americans voters break for Hillary
- Male voters break for Obama
- Independent voters break for Obama
- Younger voters break for Obama
In the list of observations above, I want to especially focus on the two that I have highlighted, and on the nexus point between the two. Why is it that the Latino population seems to greatly favor Clinton (sometimes by a 3-1 margin), and helped her win in states like California? One possible answer some might suggest is the politically incorrect reason which offers that Latino people see African Americans as competition. They often compete for the same jobs, and many in the African-American community are quick to point out that illegal Latino immigrants depress wages, which works against African Americans seeking similar jobs (this was even a debate question the other night). Cynics would say that African Americans and Latinos would rather have a white person in charge than someone from the other group. Okay, lets assume all that is true for a minute. What about Asian Americans (including South Asian Americans)? Polls from last night showed that they voted for Clinton over Obama in even higher proportions than the Latino population. Here is an excerpt from Salon:
…a self-congratulatory article in the India Express touting the influence of Indian-Americans in the Democratic primary process reveals even greater constraints on the appeal of Obama’s diversity. In California, exit poll data suggests that 69 percent of Latinos voted for Clinton, while only 29 percent voted for Obama. But Asian-American voters skewed even more sharply pro-Clinton: 75 percent voted for her, compared to 23 percent for Obama. That’s almost as high as the percentage of the black vote (78 percent) that went for Obama…Despite the claims of the Indian press, the total numbers of Indian-American voters in the New York and New Jersey primaries were too small to significantly influence the overall results. (The total Asian vote was too small for there to be any relevant exit poll data.) A better case can be made in California. In Santa Clara County, where there are some 115,000 Indian-American residents, Clinton cleaned up, winning 54.8 percent to 39.3 percent — better than her statewide average. (Whereas just to the north, in San Francisco and Alameda counties, Obama was the victor.)…
But that’s just one piece. In California, 8 percent of all Democratic voters identified themselves as Asian — a category that encompasses a vast swath of cultures. Truly, California’s diversity is extraordinary. But it doesn’t appear, so far, to translate into a willingness to vote for a “diverse” candidate for president. [Link]
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p>So why didn’t Asians pick the more “diverse candidate” who seems to have more in common with them? Does this mean that Asians might be influenced by the bigotry against African Americans that pervades much of Asian culture (Anna joked around about this in her post last night)? Let’s just admit it. Many in our parents generation are openly bigoted against blacks. But all this might just be a partial explanation and miss the underlying reasons altogether.
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p>Over at the Huffington Post, blogger Jeff Chang provides one of the most cogent explanations of Asian American voting that I have ever read. It may shed some light on all of this:
Soon we’ll be hearing a number of crackpot theories as to why this was so. Are Latinos and Asian Americans in fact slightly more conservative on immigration issues than everyone previously thought? Ridiculous. Are Latinos and Asian Americans unwilling to bring themselves to vote for a Black man? Get out of here with that.
The reason Hillary won is because the Latino and Asian American votes remain emergent, not yet insurgent.
Emergent voting blocs respond to leaders in their community. If the candidate wins the leader, she wins her followers. Insurgent voting blocs instead respond to calls for change, and may focus more on single issues or agendas. If a candidate stakes out a good position, she captures the community. Hillary played the politics of emergence.
Early, she locked down important leaders in the Latino and Asian American communities. In Los Angeles, that meant securing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s support, and the predominantly Latino unions that have supported him. She also landed the support of Fabian Nunez and Dolores Huerta. In San Francisco, that meant seizing on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s popularity amongst Asian Americans. She also captured a who’s who of Asian American elected officials starting with Controller John Chiang and moving on down. Just as important, Hillary’s campaign locked up a huge number of the leading Latino and Asian American party operatives–the people who actually deliver the voters.
All of them–from Villaraigosa to the Asian American precinct captain–were responding to what might be called aspirational politics. The individuals become proxies for the community. You hear them say in their campaigns, “When I win, you win.” Clinton’s main advantage is that she has the access to power and the party structures that deliver promises to officials and operatives. Obama doesn’t. Emergent politics favors individuals seeking power. Think of it this way: Hillary, the woman candidate, is bringing Latino and Asian American leaders into the old-boy’s network.
These leaders, in turn, deliver votes via their community’s structures of power: business groups, labor unions, voter groups, community organizations. Those groups tend to deliver an older voter who is already “in the game”, who can directly benefit from the opening of the old-boy’s network. “Experience” really is a cover for “access”. [Link]
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p>Hours after first reading the above post I am still impressed by Chang’s explanation. It also allows me to properly articulate something that I haven’t been able to do in the four years that Sepia Mutiny has been on the air. “What does the ‘Mutiny’ stand for in Sepia Mutiny?” we often get asked. I finally know how to answer that question. I want Sepia Mutiny to be one of the insurgent voices of South Asian American community (i.e., voting icebergs). I want to lend my voice to help limit the influence of emergent groups that claim to speak for all (see USINPAC). I want leaders to speak to my issues and not suck up to who they see as my “leaders.” The idea that Asian Americans would play follow the leader is not very surprising. Many Asian immigrants come from cultures where dynastic or strongman rule is the norm (think Gandhis of the Congress Party, or Modi in Gujarat for example). The people will vote how the revered leader or the influential local party official asks them to. The same is true in many Latin American countries. This is one aspect of the campaign where Clinton clearly showed her experience as superior to that of Obama’s. She knew exactly what to do to lock down the votes she needed.
So given that Chang’s analysis is correct and that the trend in Asian American voting continues, how will this play out? The Hill has an idea:
In Washington state, which caucuses Saturday, Asian Americans outnumber blacks. In Maryland, which votes in a primary Tuesday, both Asian Americans and Hispanics account for 4 percent of the population. And in Hawaii, which votes Feb. 19, they make up nearly 41 percent of the population, more than any other demographic…<
p>”They’ve seen the Clintons over the last 12-13 years,” said Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. “Obama, they’ve just come in contact with him in this last campaign. If Obama were to have a little more time, I think his exposure would have been greater.”
Asian Americans still remember that President Clinton appointed an Asian American, Norman Mineta, as his Transportation secretary, said Honda, who has not endorsed a candidate. Hillary Clinton tapped Gary Locke, the first Asian American governor of the lower 48 states, to co-chair her Washington state campaign. [Link]
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p>Seems like the tea leaves favor Clinton going into the next month of primaries.
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p>I discuss politics over email at length every day with a group of my UMich buddies. I often use some of our discussions in my posts. One of them voiced his frustration today like this:
But here’s where it starts to get tricky and darker. Latinos and Asians aren’t gonna vote for a black guy unfortunately. Thats why BO was never going to win Cali. Part of the working class vote for HRC is definetely a “not gonna vote for a black guy vote.” And part of the whtie male vote is a “not gonna vote for a woman, esp Hillary” vote.So poitively or negatively, IDENTITY POLITICS is ruling the day. If there’s ever been a question about how much identity politics has dominated progressive thinking, this is a strong indication that its completely corrupted us.
So how is BO staying in? He’s getting the 18-25 post identity politics people, and he’s causing more people to come to the polls.
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p>There is a silver lining in this for all those who (like me) want to see the end of emergent politics and the begining of insurgent politics. 18-25 year old Asian Americans voted just like 18-25 year old non-Asian Americans. That leads many to believe that the children of immigrants may be breaking the reliable habits of their parents. That will suck for politicians as it will make our larger demographic more unreliable, but good for us because they will have to listen to more of us.
Younger Latino and Asian American voters were energized by Obama, and formed a visible and crucial part of his GOTV ground troops. They had an impact. Roberto Lovato notes that Obama was able to bring down Hillary’s overall 4-1 advantage among Latino voters to a 3-2 advantage by Super Tuesday. It could be argued that Obama’s bottom-up machinery hasn’t yet taken full advantage of the pent-up energy amongst young Brown and Yellow voters.
When that power is unleashed, it will be unpredictable. The 1.5 generation, young Latino and Asian Americans from the ages of 16-40 who were born elsewhere but raised multilingual and multicultural in the U.S., represents a massive demographic bulge in those communities only beginning to feel itself. Before long, they will turn their communities’ emergent vote into an insurgent vote. And then the country will really discover not just the necessity of the Latino and Asian American vote, but what it is that they really want. [Link]
17 脗路 razib said
I thought that might be the case, that’s why i was only “slightly” bothered. 馃檪
I see what you’re saying about identity though. I definitely somewhat identify with Obama, because of the factors you mentioned and because the guy likes The Wire, which incidentally is quite popular among the “wine and cheese”/champagne socialist crowd.
Right. I agree it’s mildly off-putting, but it’s weird to get too bent out of shape about it. Imagine that 20% of the electorate thought that the moon was made of green cheese. You would be a bit of ‘tard as a politician not to mention that “theory” as a possibility in your speeches. Blame the voters, not the politicians who are brilliant people (like Jindal) who are forced to take on some odd views to be successful. Be realistic.
p.s. and south asians can be pretty racist against ‘chinese’ too. two-way street, right? the whole point is that ethnic & group interactions need to be modeled at the right level of granularity. otherwise we get stupid cliches and are ‘surprised’ when ‘people of color’ don’t get on with each other. a few weeks ago the BBC had a program on black-brown racism/tension, and some white dude called in shocked and appalled that non-whites would be racist against each other since ‘it goes against all logic’ and all that.
Aaaah, sorry about the messed up quotes.
rob, right. some of it is just that jindal is so right-wing, and indian americans are mostly a democratic community now. and some of it is that he is a christian convert to bad-mouths unsaved heathens to his fellow believers. there’s a lot to diss 馃槈 (depending on where you stand)
That has cert. been my experience at east-asian establishments, in contrast to the experiences of my (admittedly few) black (i.e., African-derived) friends.
rob, i know tamils are often perceived as ‘black’ in singapore (communication from my eurasian singaporean roommate). that doesn’t mean that the chinese think they’re african. i mean, my grandfather was prejudiced against his darkest son but he knew he wasn’t anymore african; he just thought he was ugly and didn’t like looking at him as much. my whole point in bringing up east asian racism was that even within a group like ‘asian’ there is a lot of tension and prejudice (e.g., chinese vs. japanese). i had a friend who was korean who dated a laotian hmong woman, and his family was so appalled that they stopped talking to him for a while. she was a baptist like him who was college educated, etc., and looked ‘asian.’ i recall in lucknow or allahbad the shia voted for the BJP once because their local rivals were sunnis who were aligned with congress. stuff like that.
Unrelated but, holy crap: http://my.barackobama.com/page/contribute_c/sincefeb5_email/graphic
Obama’s raised close to $6 million since the polls closed last night! Currently shooting up at $10000/minute — this is pretty unprecedented. It’s going to beat the Ron Paul one day fundraising, and I don’t think they were even planning on it doing so..
jackal, wealthy, web-savvy, young, etc. looks like hillary will have to loan her campaign more money.
razib,
yeah, i’m not denying e-asian prejudice, just have never thought of it as racism (i.e., japanese v. korean). Most e-asians, in my exper., are pretty positive towards desis.
servers down. looks like their sysops need to do some load balancing….
Yeah, it’s getting a bit spotty. I was able to get it again, up to 5.8 million now — it’s mesmerizing! I’m guessing they weren’t expecting this.. viral money donation game anyone?
Most e-asians, in my exper., are pretty positive towards desis.
right, but there’s a reason that south asian student associations started, right? i know that brownz often feel out of place or left out at asian-pacific student union organizations sometimes. as for positivity of exp., i think among american born college educated types there’s a lot of commonality and amity. prolly less so among 1st-gen.
well, the elite media is hardcore pro-obama. hopefully they’ll be able to spin some nice propoganda stories out of the money being raised!
Yeah, fair enough.
I think Hillary has enough of a lock on the super-delegates that it’s all but over, really. Obama’s got the $$ and will win MD, VA, DC, but–my money is on Hillary to take the Dem. nomination. And then McCain might well win. You have to give it to the GOP for picking the “best” candidate, in terms of general-election viability.
Super-delegates can change their votes can they? Anyways, it’ll be tough, at the very least, for Hillary with the next month probably featuring a fair number of losses for her, and Obama raising $30 million to use in Ohio/Texas; while she’s loaning herself money to compete in terms of advertising.
1) yeah, from what i’m reading super-delegates aren’t much of an issue prolly (a lot are uncommitted). this isn’t ’84
2) feb. is going to be tough for hillary. but obama needs to break out of his upper class white and quasi-white & black ghetto. obama wins whites in states with no blacks. in early march he hits ohio & texas. in texas he’ll be up against latinos & white southern democrats. so he needs to break out with working class whites at some point.
have to be trending heavily Hillary, given that they are, by definition, the Democratic-party establishment, and Obama is a newcomer while Hillary is not.
btw, i have been reading stuff about how hillary clinton supporters feel lonely on elite campuses. this nomination is about race & class, mixed & matched. dean & romney show that activist elites can’t always sway the results at the end of the day.
Yup, he’s going to have make some inroads into those groups. He did seem to do fairly well with southern white males in Georgia, so that’s less of a concern than Hispanics and older women I think. Texas becomes interesting because some large percentage of delegates are assigned by caucuses, which his campaign seems to have mastered quite well. He’ll probably do well with Austin liberals as well. The big difference from the Feb. 5 states is, of course, time. Both campaigns will have time to dedicate to individual states.
That will suck for politicians as it will make our larger demographic more unreliable, but good for us because they will have to listen to more of us.
Abhi, I think this is one of the most brilliant sentences you’ve ever written. (Admittedly I may have missed something in the last few months.)
A chinese-american friend of mine said he wished he had known Obama has a Chinese-American brother-in-law—he thinks this would have helped him sway his parents into believing Obama can look out for Asian-American interests as well.
I like Chang’s analysis on the situation. I think he’s a bit too quick to dismiss the possibility of anti-Black sentiment in Latino and Asian communities, though. However, this insurgent vs emergent voting idea is compelling.
Clinton’s strength is among women, latinos, asians and the older generation of democrats. Obama’s strength is among african-americans, independents, college educated white males, and the younger generation.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
East asian racial contempt for dark-skinned people like indians and africans is well known. Whether they are imitating white racism is debatable. But what accounts for south asian prejudice towards dark skin other than slavish self-loathing, considering that south asians are overwhelmingly dark-skinned?
Abhi thanks so much for this (love Jeff, btw). I get frustrated when I hear the “entrenched racism” argument, which is often paired with descriptions of the Watts riots and Korean v. Black violence. It’s true, there’s inter-community racism, but there are other attractive reasons for why APIAs voted for Clinton (and reasons why they did not vote as heavily for Clinton in “older” Asian American communities, e.g. Alameda/SF, than in “newer” communities, e.g. Contra Costa and Santa Clara). I’m surprised no one has talked about how Hillary conforms so closely to the model minority stereotype that’s projected onto APIA, esp. East Asian American, communities. Just as my Viet friends’ parents vote hardcore Reagan republicans, a good number of friends’ parents vote hardcore Clinton. I think there are a lot of factors that contribute to this. Similarly, a friend mused that he was shocked that Clinton cleaned house in LA. How is this shocking? She had the endorsement and GOTV-backing of HUGE Latino political names — Villaraigosa, Loretta Sanchez, Fabian Nunez, and the list continues.
Thanks also for including the breakdown by age group — to borrow from Colbert, I felt in my gut that the numbers/breakdown would be closer to parity among younger folks. I know that many of my friends (who are split bet. Obama and Clinton) were working overtime going home to get older folks in their community to vote for their candidate. I think some are energized by California and want to bring a familiar face to the upcoming contests (notably WA and TX). I wonder if it’ll happen in time 馃檪 I think a really interesting dynamic will be to see if folks are able to severely disrupt the top-down GOTV system that usually operates in California. In that sense, Clinton’s campaign is not doing anything new for electoral politics. Obama’s campaign has worked hard to create a ground campaign that emulates grassroots activity (it is not purely grassroots, but it certainly does a lot more “ground up” work than any of the other campaigns I’ve seen on the trail). I think, even with the generational balancing and differences, as young Asian Americans (including ABDs) and Latinos become more and more involved in campaign politics, the more we’ll see the “top down” structure neutralize a bit.
Does this blog deliberately omit the obvious:
Why the omission? Points 1-7 are also obviously correct. Hillary will dig it out and appoint Obama as VP… he’s certainly earned it. They’ll win easily. Talk radio will bitterly oppose them at every step.
12 脗路 RandomDude said
Then what about the Jews, sorry to go off topic. Let’s just be honest here liberal or not a lot of people are not ready to see a black man as President and a lot of black people are big supporters of Clinton no matter what.
I am not sure I agree with Jeff Chang. Yes, party bosses have a disproportionate influence, but that is mostly relevant to funding, where Obama actually has an edge on Hillary. The other aspect, which is not relevant in most years but has become important this year much like the electoral college did in 2000 (and, for a brief period of half an hour till Ohio was confirmed, in 2004), is that of the superdelegates.
The real issue is not one of emergent (that word also annoys me because it is not representative of the trend that Jeff Chang is talking about, it was just chosen to rhyme with insurgent, why not “detergent”?) vs. insurgent, but in fact, the same identity politics that Jeff Chang is perpetrating when he talks about Asian-American/Latino/whatever voting blocs. These groups will become more unpredictable only when they shed this stupid bogey of identity politics and vote on issues – it is not an issue of party bosses. Of course, this might be too much to hope for given that other minorities like Af-Ams and women are still grappling with these same issues even after so many decades.
That said, Obama hasn’t been shy of touting the support of all the senators who have been endorsing him. And I don’t think you can get any more establishment on the Democrat side than Ted Kennedy, who has gone all out for Obama. If these people had been rooting for Hillary, I am certain the supporters of Obama the underdog would be making that heard everywhere.
This is just my hunch. Most of the people in the immigration wave of the 80s and 90s, Hispanics and Asians, tend to have fond memories of the Clintons, the people in charge as they were assimilated and gained citizenship. That’s my guess on why they seem to vote for Hillary over Obama.
And have repressed the memories “of that woman Ms Lewinski”, who President Clinton didn’t have an affair with and “the meaning of is is” to want that circus back again in the White House
Yes, we should treat them as one indivisible entity and punish her for the (irrelevant as far as his office was concerned, or so they should have been, if not for a bunch of hypocritical Republicans) mistakes of her philandering husband, while simultaneously deriding her for riding on the coattails of the accomplishments of that entity.
A test of Chang’s theory on access, will be if Obama wins the nomination. If he wins the nomination, do Asian-Americans provide him with the same level of support (financial and otherwise) that they give to Hill. I’m sure some will come out and provide some financial support to Obama but will he get the same amount of votes that Hill received from the Asian American and Latino community? If Asian Americans and Latinos who would have voted for Hill, abstain or vote for Mccain, I think that might go a long way in saying that factors like identity politics have a greater sway on how people vote than anyone wants to admit. After all, Hill and Obama’s platforms aren’t drastically different.
In other words, let’s have a collective experiment, vote for Obama today to see if Desis are really racist later. 馃槈
I am not blaming her for his indiscretions, just pointing out what we have to look forward to Clintons enter the White House. Since he is no longer the president, he will have even more time on his hands. The philandering and the fallout impacted Bill Clinton’s second term from 1998 onwards and you can blame the Republicans for it but lets not forget that Bill Clinton displayed terribly bad judgment in the entire episode, lied under oath and was disbarred and impeached as well.
Even if he is better behaved than the last time around, Bill Clinton has the potential to become an extra constitutional power center and like it or not voters will take all this into consideration when deciding to support her or not. Also in the general election independent and Republican voters who would never vote for Hillary would vote for Obama (anecdotal evidence: some of my Republican friends have even changed their party registrations to be able to vote for Obama) also many long term Democrats share this unease about Clintons.
Bill Clinton’s behavior between the NH and South Carolina primaries almost made it seem like he was running for an unofficial third term through extra constitutional means i.e. his spouse. I would find it much easier to support Hillary if we didn’t get Bill with her as a package deal. Co-presidency thing really makes me uncomfortable. Riding on her husband’s coattails is a decision she made, I think she could have made it on her own and like all of us she has to face the consequences of her decisions, may be unfair to her, but that’s just how it is.
Another point the 35 years of experience she is touting includes several as the first lady and if she claims credit for the successes of the Clinton presidency as her own she also gets saddled with the not so great aspects of it.
82 脗路 Rahul said
Thomas-Hill, not to mention Packwood. You people set the precedent. We over at the VRWC just followed.
Ah, that’s what I was missing, thanks for the clarification! Sexual harassment is exactly equivalent to sex between consenting adults. I guess it is the same logic that requires the Republicans to look into everybody’s bedrooms to determine which orifices are legal, and which genders are allowed to copulate with each other.
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No matter how you vote, you’re always black see #12 , #77.
Unless you’re not black ,but some other shade of brown, then you’re obviously intelligent enough to vote with a view to your own self interest- but that’s not being racist, that’s using your vote to promote something you believe in. AfAm’s pretty much exclusive support of Democratic candidates over the past 60 yrs, is discounted in this comment. (black/half black progress is not a worthy goal in this instance). Leave for now comments /acronyms about LBJ/MLK and the CRM.
How about having The first black (eye roll)president campaigning for you? That’s pretty establishment.
Diff. thread but I believe you also pointed to Paul Krugmans take on the Obama vs Clinton health care plan. I heard Prof. Krugman speak last year about Globalisation and Welfare. He rightly (?) predictes that some form of earned income tax credit will have to worked out for middle class/ college educated Americans at some point if current trends continue. It’s not just blue collar low skills workers who are seeing wages depressed, and tradable jobs disappear. He talked about the death of the “Washington consensus” and now that we are waking up from the neo con adventure maybe some of it will be more palatable to Americans. But it has an odour of class distinctions, and we don’t do “class” separate from race in the US. Besides only lazy people who don’t want to work need welfare 馃槈
I’m curious who you talk to about health care reform? It’s my experience that some [Americans] who can barely balance their checkbook hear universal health care & immediately see mental images of a hammer and sickle. The city of London has surpassed Wall Street as the center of world trade. This in a country where conservative MP’s support the NHS somehow seems to get missed out.
It doesn’t take a Machiavellian political mindset for him [Obama] to be aware of his political affiliation, race, American history ,knowledge of the GOP’s probable playbook to realize he can not be as “liberal/aggressive” as an older,ummm “non minority” candidate is on the issue. Until more CEO’s, Wall street types come out and talk about the cost of health care and its effect on their competitiveness anyone who suggests that the system is broken is just another tax and spend ,big government liberal. I think Barack Hussein Obama has considered all of this, and is still uppity enough to think he can win because he’s offering something tangible and intangible that we all want.
(grabbing a kleenex), I’m proud of America!
86 脗路 Rahul said
Paula Jones did not consent. either did katleen wiley or jauanita broderick. Now if you want ot argue that monica did and jones lawyers had no right to ask bubba about consensual sex in the workplace, go right ahead; but then explain to me why the consenual sexual activity of thomas and packwood was plastered all over the front pages.
Just “progressives” and liberals, whose actions are apparently explicable purely by guilt.
Oh, no denying that. I am just arguing the claim that Obama is the upstart that everybody claims he is.
I actually thought that comment you linked to where Obama said his children were too privileged to deserve affirmative action was great. I don’t know if that is consistent with his general public posture, but assuming it is, I do hope he acts on it if he gets elected.
Yogi, your comment #84 about electability because of the doubts of anonymous “voters” is very different than your personal opinion that you stated in #81.
Liberal media bias?
I think a lot of the Asian-American vote for Hillary is a ‘Bill’ vote. Middle generation Asian-American immigrants who immigrated here in the late 80’s and throughout the 90s are still enraptured by Bill. Many view his policies as the reason for such an increase in the Asian-American immigrant population (especially over the past decade) and their assimilation in the American community. There is belief among the community that Hillary (with Bill behind) her, would continue in the same vein. Obama is ‘likable enough’ but an unknown in that regard – yet its a testament to his surging popularity that he is managing to turn heads and close the gap in that demographic. If Bill were allowed to enter the fray today and campaign – I think he would win California very easily (and by a landslide)
I was elaborating in #84 the discomfort I feel about Hillary Clinton’s bid for Democratic nomination for presidency.
81 was a tongue-in-cheek rejoinder for #80
Also I was not talking about any phantom “voters” but a couple of my friends who were registered republicans are genuinely excited about Obama. Rahul, go ahead support Clinton if you think she is the best person for the job, but don’t rush to judgment that just because someone is opposed her they are being misogynistic. OK have to stop with this post gotta get back to work now.
Where did I say, or even imply “misogynistic”?
Obama is clearly talented and smart, and could make a great president, but he misrepresents himself when he says that he will bring a new kind of politics – on the balance, his legislative record does not reflect any extraordinary courage, but rather a desire to be popular and not rock the boat, and his lack of a significant record to stand on, far from being a disadvantage, is essential to his image of a harbinger of change. And it is not as if Obama is floating to power on magic dollars that manifest themselves by hope, so I don’t see why he will be especially devoid of lobbyist influence? Hillary is seriously flawed in many ways too, but those are flaws that people cast the spotlight on, whereas somehow saying things about Obama is construed as arguing against hope (???).
On the other hand, this intoxication by hope, and the consequent electability and popularity might mean that he might actually do the things which we HOPE he believes in, so he could indeed be our new Teflon president.
93 脗路 Rahul said
iraq? at the time, the CV was it would be a cakewalk and WMDs would surely be found. No one with presidential aspirations, certainly not Hillary or Kerry, wanted to oppose authorization. granted, he wasn’t in the US senate at the time, but he went on record nonetheless.
My mother cannot stand Hillary. She is all out for Obama this time. But I do think Indians are more likely to vote for a female candidate than a typical white guy because of the prevalence of high profile female politicians in India, especially if they have a connection with a famous male politician from the past.
Some California numbers. In 25 counties, Obama did better than his state number (42.3%), and in 33 counties, he did worse. State census demographics: WB (white, non hispanic + black) = 49.8%, AH (asian + hispanic) = 48.3%. For ALL 25 counties where Obama did better than his state average, AH is less than 48.3%. There is not a single exception. [link].
Top three in terms of AH proportion are San Francisco (obama=52.1, AH=46.2), Alameda(obama=44.7, AH=45.8) and San Mateo(Obama=43.5, AH=46.6). Out of those three, only SF stands out. Obama’s numbers in Alameda and San Mateo are not that different from state average, and he did lose both of those counties even though he did better than state average. Interestingly, SF’s Asian-Hispanic breakdown is 32-14, but it’s more even in Alameda(24-21) and San Mateo(23-23). Bottom ten of the 33 counties where Obama did worse than his state average are all AH-heavy — to be more precise, H-heavy — except Tehama. [link]
Source: [primary results by county] and [census data]
do you really think Obama understands or really has had any multi-cultural experience unless you’re talking about white & black culture. I lived in Chennai(then Madras) for the 1st 6 years of my life and spoke the native tongue fluently, I’m told. I now know not a single word of Tamil. My kids lived in germany for 2.5 years and picked up german which they promptly forgot when we came back to the US. I don’t think you have any multi cultural understanding unless you experience it for at least six years and during the 10 – 21 year period at least.
Yes, he was lucky enough not to be in the Senate. And I wouldn’t be so uncharitable as to call him out on that random chance, if his legislative record in both Illinois and DC didn’t seem to be littered with compromises galore.
Also, and I ask this because I am genuinely curious: I have seen a lot of justified lashing out at Bill for his Jesse Jackson remark, as well as oodles of coverage on the “Iraq fairytale” speech, but I have seen nary a sentence on the actual charges that Bill leveled about Barack’s consistency on Iraq (that does have a poetic ring to it, doesn’t it?). Can somebody point me to some articles or posts about the truth or otherwise of Bill’s specific comments?
average white on the west coast than east asian (who are prejudiced against dark-skinned people quite often or find them repulsive), black (who are often anti-immigrant) or latino (who frankly are often not that well educated have some stereotypes about ‘turks’ and what not)
I dont see this at all. If you’re going to assume each sample comes from an “uneducated” sample space. An uneducated white is just as apt to discriminate, and they have issues of personal ownership of the country, that aren’t held by the remainder.