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President of South Korea Park Geun-Hye Addresses a Joint Session of Congress

SURVEY: Obama won every Asian American nationality

Karthick Ramakrishnan

A report released Friday found that every segment of Asian Americans voted for Barack Obama in November, including the historically Republican Vietnamese and Filipino communities.

 But the report found that almost half of Asian American and Pacific Islander registered voters do not identify with the Democratic or Republican parties, meaning that they may be open to switching their votes to other parties in the future. Democrat Obama received 68 percent of the Asian American and Pacific Islander vote, compared with 30 percent for Republican Mitt Romney.

 Obama did best among Asian Indians, who gave the president 84 percent of their votes. More than 60 percent of Vietnamese and Filipino voters supported Obama.

 READ MORE: http://blog.pe.com/multicultural-beat/2013/04/06/survey-obama-won-every-asian-american-nationality/

David Kuo, former Bush White House official, dies

J. David Kuo, an evangelical Christian conservative and former top official of President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative who attracted wide attention when he accused the administration of failing to live up to the values it espoused, died April 5 in Charlotte. He was 44.

He had brain cancer that was diagnosed a decade ago, his wife, Kimberly, said.

The arc of Mr. Kuo’s life and career had taken him from liberal to conservative, from hard-edged Republican activism in the 1990s to disillusionment with the idea that politics could serve as an extension of his faith.

Read more; http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/j-david-kuo-onetime-leader-of-bushs-faith-based-initiative-dies-at-44/2013/04/06/24e9cd6a-987e-11e2-97cd-3d8c1afe4f0f_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

Yes, Health Care is a Right -- An Individual Right

Avik Roy is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of the Forbes blog The Apothecary. He has stated he is an "outside adviser to the Romney campaign on health care issues

Many moons ago, I served a term as chairman of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union, a parliamentary debating society. On March 26, the Union invited me back to keynote a debate on the topic, “Resolved, That Health Care is a Right.” What follows is an edited excerpt of my remarks, in which I argue that health care is indeed a right—but not in the way that most progressives think.

Thank you, Madame President.

The reason I’m here is to explain to the members of this House why health care is, indeed, a right. Let me start by telling the story of Deamonte Driver.

Deamonte lived on the wrong side of the tracks, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C. He was raised by a single mother. He spent his childhood in and out of homeless shelters. He was a black kid on welfare.

Deamonte died at age twelve. But Deamonte died, not in a drive-by shooting, or in a drug deal gone bad. Deamonte died of a toothache.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2013/03/28/yes-health-care-is-a-right-an-individual-right/

Why Asian-Americans Have Turned Their Backs on the Republican Party



Since 2000, Asian-Americans have consistently voted Democratic. (Hill Street Studios/Getty)

 The Republican Party’s problems with Latino voters are well documented, but its poor performance with Asian-Americans should be giving the party even greater pause. By and large, Asian-Americans are affluent, well educated, and disproportionately absent from the dreaded 47 percent. Moreover, they once had a history of voting Republican. In 1992, Asian-Americans favored George H. W. Bush over Bill Clinton, and four years later they went for Bob Dole.

 

 Much has changed. Since 2000, Asian-Americans have consistently voted Democratic. In 2008, Asian-Americans gave 62 percent of their vote to Barack Obama. Last November that number jumped to 73 percent even as the president’s margin of victory in the popular vote was cut in half as he garnered a Dukakis-like 41 percent of white voters and slid by more than 13 points among Jewish-Americans. 

It is not for lack of trying that Republicans are being rebuffed by this fast-growing, though still small, demographic. Republicans in Louisiana and South Carolina nominated Indian Americans to be their party’s respective gubernatorial nominees, and after both candidates won they were nationally showcased. At the cabinet level, add Elaine Chao, who served for eight years as W’s Labor secretary and is the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/26/why-asian-americans-have-turned-their-backs-on-the-republican-party.html

Obama: The Marketer-in-Chief

 

Politics offer us clear insight into the formulation of marketing. Very rarely, outside of bikini-clad or football-related beer ads, is the marketing so blatantly transparent. Throughout the 2012 Presidential Election, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s campaigns vigorously targeted particular demographics by appealing to certain internal and external forces that influence a voter’s choice. In the end, it was the ability of Barack Obama to connect with these factors that allowed him to retain his incumbency.

“Obama was the better marketer and if the Grand Old Party wants to have a chance of resetting the electoral map they need to respect marketing” (Tantillo, 2012). This statement is especially true when we look at two if the most decisive issues: Healthcare and Reproductive/Women’s Rights.

Healthcare

Almost immediately after it was passed in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had its detractors and some pretty prominent ones at that. Fast forward nearly two years and “repeal Obamacare” became a rallying cry for the Republican Party. This was intimated by numerous candidates during the primaries and by Mitt Romney as the eventual nominee.

Outside of trying to appeal to those who are against big-government and rational thinkers who are aware of the bureaucratic nightmare this may become, Mitt Romney’s message was largely ineffective. This was because a majority of Americans, although not necessarily in favor of the ACA were not willing to simply repeal it (Jones, 2012). Barack Obama’s camp kept close watch on polling data that allowed them to tailor their message effectively to the trends currently impacting the public, thus they were easily able to appeal to those who the ACA was intended to benefit (lower income, pre-existing conditions, unemployed recent college graduates) and come off looking compassionate and keeping the public’s best interest in mind.

GALLUP: Asian-Americans Solidly Prefer Democrats

This is not good. Wake up Republicans! Stop sleeping!




Sixty-one percent of young adult Asian-Americans identify as/lean Democratic by Andrew Dugan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Asian-Americans -- who were a key part, if sometimes overlooked, of President Barack Obama's 2012 electoral coalition -- solidly back the Democratic Party, with 57% identifying as or leaning Democratic, compared with 28% identifying as or leaning Republican. Thirteen percent are "pure" independents.

However, the data suggest that a substantial portion of Asian-Americans are not entirely wedded to either of the major political parties: 46% first describe themselves as independent or other, and only when asked if they "lean" Republican or Democratic does the Democratic Party garner its majority support within this group.

These findings are based on aggregated data from Gallup Daily tracking surveys conducted throughout 2012, including interviews with 6,465 Asian-Americans. For the purpose of this analysis, respondents are categorized as Asian-American if they self-identify their race as Asian.

Read more: http://www.gallup.com/poll/160775/asian-americans-solidly-prefer-democrats.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication

Democrat 'Racial slurs' aimed at Asian Republican wife draw McConnell's ire

Source: Associated Press

WINCHESTER, Kentucky (AP) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lambasted a liberal group on Saturday for criticizing the Asian heritage of his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, calling its Twitter messages "racial slurs" and "the ultimate outrage."

McConnell forcefully defended Chao, who was born in Taiwan and who moved to the U.S. as an 8-year-old with her family aboard a freight ship.

"They will not get away with attacking my wife in this campaign," McConnell told about 100 home-state supporters at a Republican dinner in Winchester.

"This woman has the ear of (at)McConnellPress — she's his (hash)wife," the group Progress Kentucky tweeted on Feb. 14. "May explain why your job moved to (hash)China!"

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/03/02/mcconnell-chao-twitter-kentucky/1959635/

Harmeet K. Dhillon: California Republicans at a Crossroads

California Republicans are at a crossroads. We need to take a good look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves.  We have many values and traits as Republicans that make us attractive to voters.  From being seen as strong leaders on job creation and fiscal responsibility to understanding the importance of protecting bedrock constitutional, individual and natural rights, we have a value set and message to voters that can win in California again.  But first, we need a California Republican Party that is committed to giving our candidates the tools and resources to engage in hand-to-hand “political combat” and win against our increasingly leftist Democrat adversaries.

I’m seeking the support of California Republican Party delegates to represent the party as its next Vice Chair, from the northern region of our great state.

Many in the media are pushing a narrative that our values are the problem in the hope that our party will abandon those very core principles that we know are critical to California’s future and our electoral success.  Many on the left and in the media attack our values as the culprit for losing campaigns when our candidates are outspent sometimes by ridiculous amounts and rely on a campaign infrastructure that is obsolete and in need of renovation and innovation.

 The next leadership of the California Republican Party needs to get back to the fundamentals of helping qualified candidates win elections.  That means emphasizing what can be controlled and doing it well including:

 1.Raising resources to help our candidates take their message to the voters and compete more effectively with their Democrat opponents who are funded heavily by government labor unions and special interests.
 
2.Reaching into new communities that are “growth markets” for new GOP candidates, voters, donors and volunteers.  We aren’t going to win over voters in new, growing communities if we aren’t willing to invest the time to build deeper, personal bonds.  We must communicate at the grassroots level to build credibility, not just create a new “outreach” plan that makes everybody feel good but accomplishes little.  Our communications efforts need to emphasize new, cost-effective technologies to help our candidates better reach voters in those “growth markets.”
 
3.Recruit and equip a new generation of candidates who reflect the communities they seek to represent and share our Republican values.  We must strengthen our candidate campaign schools and get those candidates ready to face the Democrat attack machine. Every community in California contains conservative leaders; our job is to find them and nurture them.

The California Republican Party is a home in need of renovation.  There is no need to disturb the foundation of its core conservative values, but it’s time to add on a few new rooms for what can and should be a growing family.

A critical element of the party’s success will be for party activists and candidates to step outside their comfort zones in a number of ways. For one, we must adopt the best possible technology now. The party can learn from the successes of our opposition’s voter contact and outreach mechanics so we can spread our message more effectively.  This element of our plan is particularly critical to reaching out and engaging Millenial-generation voters.

Republicans also need to increase their engagement in their communities beyond politics – such as volunteering in their communities in non-Republican settings, nonprofit groups, the arts, social service organizations, and neighborhood associations. It is in these time honored, grass roots, locally-based apolitical organizations where relationships are formed, leadership opportunities emerge, and volunteers get an opportunity to gain the trust of their neighbors. There is no better way for Republicans to expand their circles of influence than by leaving their computers, engaging with their neighbors in person and becoming a part of their community.

The California Republican Party has the basic tools it needs to excel.  We have great volunteers and committed supporters ready to compete and win. We have an electorate yearning for better leadership than the failed tax-and-spend Democrat crew in Sacramento who are the epitome of what people despise in government but have only been hearing one side of the argument. We, as Republicans, need leadership that will put the party back on firm financial footing with an improved professional operation that is focused on changing those dynamics.

As I watched the many television documentaries on President’s Day about President Lincoln, I was reminded of his belief that even in the toughest times you must stand and fight for what is right.  We must look to our first Republican President and our nation’s greatest leader for the inspiration to bring our state and nation forward behind the conservative policies and values that we know will make life better for our fellow citizens.  Our party must once again provide support and tools for our elected leaders and candidates who will be attacked by the Democrats for doing what is right.

Can we regain that once bright promise for California? Pulling together, I know that we can.  I ask for your support at the California Republican Party Convention and hope you will go to my website to get to know more about me and to get involved with my campaign.  Thank you.

A short video regarding some of Harmeet’s goals as CRP Vice Chair

About the Author: Harmeet K. Dhillon  is the Chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party and candidate for California Republican Party Vice Chairman. If you would like to support her campiagn please go to http://www.dhillonforcrp.com/index.html. On March 2nd (tommorow) she is holding an event in Sacramento for supporters of her campaign.

Campaign site: http://www.dhillonforcrp.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dhillonforcrp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HKD4CRPVC

Harmeet Dhillon, candidate for Vice Chair of the California Republican Party, talks about uniting the party in California.

Supervisor Janet Nguyen to Run for State Senate with Support of the Senate’s Republican Leaders

GARDEN GROVE, CA — Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen today announced that she will be a candidate for State Senate in the new 34th district and that she had already secured the support of the Senate’s Republican leaders, including Senate Minority leader Bob Huff and Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ted Gaines. Nguyen currently represents 60% of the 34th district as a County Supervisor.

“The people of our area work hard to build a better life for themselves and their children,” said Nguyen. “They care about our schools, the local economy and the safety of their neighborhoods. They want and deserve results and care little about the partisan debate in Sacramento.”

Nguyen said that her priorities for the district are to make sure local schools are fully funded, give tax and regulatory relief to small businesses, increase public safety and make sure that seniors maintain access to quality health care. She says the state legislature needs to reduce waste, control spending and concentrate on growing the economy and bringing jobs back to the state.

“Janet Nguyen is a public servant who works tirelessly for the people of her district. She will be a great addition to the State Senate and I am pleased to endorse her,” said Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff.

“Last year, California voters chose to raise taxes. Now we need more responsible representatives in Sacramento who will use those new funds wisely, balance the state budget and not keep coming back to hard working Californians looking for more,” said Nguyen.

State Senator Mimi Walters called Nguyen the ideal candidate for the 34th district. “Janet knows what it takes to run and win tough campaigns because she has done it time and time again. She is a tenacious campaigner and a dedicated public servant,” said Walters.

The 34th district contains the heart of Orange County and all of the area known as Little Saigon. Over 90% of the registered voters in the district live in Orange County, with the remainder in Long Beach.
Janet Nguyen was elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors in February, 2007.

In doing so, she became the first Asian-American and the first Vietnamese-American to serve on the Board of Supervisors, and the youngest Supervisor ever to be elected in Orange County. In 2008, Nguyen was honored by Latino OC 100 for her contributions to the Latino community. Janet previously served on the Garden Grove City Council and as Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. Janet, her husband and children live in Garden Grove.

During her tenure as a County Supervisor, the County has maintained a balanced budget every year while also being able to set aside money into the reserve. The County of Orange restructured its Retirement Medical and Pensions Programs, resulting in savings of $992 million to the County’s unfunded liability.

As part of an effort to reclaim local neighborhoods from the control of gangs, Janet joined the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and local law enforcement agencies to obtain a permanent gang injunction against local criminal street gangs.

http://www.janetforsupervisor.com/

Asian Republican Mayors

Jeremy Yamaguchi, 23, is said to be California's youngest mayor. He governs in Placentia. He is joined by fellow Mayor Ling Ling Chang, of Diamond Bar. Both are Republicans. Credit Dave Colby

Obama’s Minimum Wage Gambit

The President’s proposal to raise the minimum wage is as politically clever as it is economically meaningless. The proposal is pointless in practical terms since it can’t become law and wouldn’t help the economy if it did. It is only significant because of what it says about President Obama.

The President is clearly learning how to use Republican dysfunction to his advantage. This gambit invites Republicans to put their most serious weaknesses on display. So far we are giving him what he hoped for and more.

Any Republican response ought to begin by acknowledging the merits of the minimum wage. While it’s true that a wage floor eliminates some jobs, that’s what it is meant to accomplish. In extreme circumstances, people can find themselves without negotiating leverage in the wage market. A wage floor, along with the rest of the social safety net, legislates out of existence certain jobs which are inherently exploitative.

Along the way it incentivizes technological development, supporting careers in fields like computers and robotics which might not exist if the poorest in society could be starved into submission. Eliminating the wage floor entirely would do more than make the poor poorer. It would pull some of the momentum out of higher-paid industries, sucking wages downward for everyone.

While a minimum wage serves a purpose, it needs to be handled with care. An increase in the minimum wage moves the range of available careers higher up the value scale. However, if we shift it too far then lower-skill workers begin to suffer, seeing the opportunities to launch careers fade.

For example, if the minimum wage were hiked to $20/hour, then the window of available careers will no longer include, as an example, the McDonalds restaurant. McDonalds might still provide drive-through service, but they could not afford to pay humans to do the work. Such a high minimum wage might make fast-food automation economically viable eliminating millions of entry-level jobs.

Perhaps your Big Mac would be cooked and served by a mostly-automated restaurant. Your meal would cost a bit more and you might be less likely to get ‘screwed at the drive-through,’ but such a high wage floor could eliminate the entire concept of student employment and make unskilled work almost entirely redundant.

It makes sense to hike the minimum wage significantly if the mass availability of desperate workers is causing technology investment to lag. However, that is the opposite of what we are experiencing. Rapidly accelerating technical advances have created a long-term paradigm shift away from manual labor.

This has spawned twin problems, a frustrating talent drought in knowledge careers (unemployment for IT professionals is around 3%) and vast structural unemployment in less skilled jobs. Raising the minimum wage by a meaningful margin would exacerbate both problems at the same time.

The modest increase Obama is proposing is probably too small to have any effect at all beyond its political value. According the Labor Department, in 2011 about 2% of American workers earned at or below the minimum wage. Most of them were under 25 and white. A tiny minority (3%) of hourly workers over 25 earn at or below the minimum wage. The wage floor does little more than d

etermine how many summer jobs the economy will support. That’s why there is little difference in the unemployment rates between states with a higher minimum wage and those that stick with the Federal rate. Our economy has developed to the point that the minimum wage is largely irrelevant.

The wage floor has no relationship to the most serious problem affecting low earners – our systemic failure to prepare workers to meet the exploding demand for technical fields. It takes years to prepare workers for knowledge careers. Those jobs are going unfilled and businesses are doing their best to adapt to the labor drought.  All told, Obama’s proposal would probably eliminate a few thousand student jobs while doing nothing about our core problems. Democrats are once again using the working poor as a backdrop for campaign photos.

And Republicans can’t do anything about it.

This would be the perfect moment for Republicans to unveil a rational, realistic program to address the collapse in upward mobility among the working poor and minorities. We can’t do that because we don’t have one.  We cannot develop sensible responses to real world issues while locked in an ideological fantasyland in which every problem is solved by cutting taxes, deporting Mexicans or humiliating pregnant teenagers. Jack Kemp is gone and no one has yet emerged with the courage or insight to continue his legacy.

So, the gambit will probably succeed. President Obama and the Democrats are positioned to score a few more political points while struggling Americans languish. For Republicans, it’s yet another opportunity missed.

About the Author: Chris Ladd is a Texan who is now living in the Chicago area.  He is the founder of Building a Better GOP and has served for several years as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in DuPage County, IL, and was active in state and local Republican campaigns in Texas for many years. (Email: chrladd AT gmail DOT com)

J.C. Watts Launches 'INSIGHT America'

From BetNews:


J.C. "Buddy" Watts Sr., father of former Republican congressman J.C. Watts, in 1999 said, "A Black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting for Col. Sanders." Back then, his son was the only African-American Republican in Congress and there's still just one. It is in part why Watts is taking steps to diversify his party by starting an organization called Insight.

Set to launch on Feb. 27, Insight will recruit students of color to serve in Republican offices, host professional development and policy forums and provide networking opportunities, Politico reports. The policy forums will kick off in March and focus on issues that affect ethnic minorities.

Watts, who runs a consulting firm, said he was inspired to create Insight in part by his time as a youth pastor. He hopes the group will help young people of color build the kinds of networks that build careers.

Read more: http://www.bet.com/news/politics/2013/02/19/j-c-watts-launches-group-to-groom-minority-republicans.html

The GOP's Big Asian-American Problem

Still overlooked in the immigration discussion are Asian Americans, who are the fastest growing demographic group in the country—and one of the most diverse. The bulk of Asian American immigrants (83 percent) come from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.

At present, they’re 5.8 percent of the total population, nearly half of whom live in the West, with a large concentration on the Pacific coast. Seventy-four percent of Asian American adults were born outside of the United States, and in 2009—according to the Pew Research Center—Asian American immigration outpaced Hispanic immigration for the first time in recent history:

Read more: http://prospect.org/article/gops-big-asian-american-problem

Shawn Steel: Republicans can win over Asian voters, if they try

Shawn Steel, California's National Republican Committeeman, and a former chairman of the California Republican Party writes:

In the wake of Mitt Romney's narrow loss to President Obama, much has been said about improving Republican outreach to Hispanic voters. While that is true and necessary, there is another neglected voter demographic with whom the GOP can make more immediate and significant headway: Asian-Pacific Islanders.''

In a national election decided by 4 points or less, tiny pools of voters are crucial. Asians are America's fastest-growing immigrant community, and Asian voters constitute 2 percent to 7 percent of registered voters in half of the traditional 10 swing states. This isn't exactly classified information, yet Team Romney seemed oblivious to it.

In a national election decided by 4 points or less, tiny pools of voters are crucial. Asians are America's fastest-growing immigrant community, and Asian voters constitute 2 percent to 7 percent of registered voters in half of the traditional 10 swing states. This isn't exactly classified information, yet Team Romney seemed oblivious to it.

Shared conservative values make Asians the best potential citizens for rapid integration into Republican Party. For example:

» Economic achievement makes Asians the immigrant group most rapidly assimilated into the middle class in U.S. history.

» Asian-Americans enjoy longer marriages and have fewer children out of wedlock, and their families are more intact than the general population's.

» First-generation Asian-American voters generally distrust government due to experience in their homelands, where bribery was the local currency for getting permits and permission. Generally speaking, they frown on government regulation of their businesses.

The GOP is the middle-class party, and Asians would feel more welcome if properly engaged.

Read more: http://washingtonexaminer.com/republicans-can-win-over-asian-voters-if-they-try/article/2515666