80-20: A borderline racist lame duck?

[AngryABCGirl]

So I saw what follows below on their website, this a portion of the page. They could have just not endorsed him, and based on issues, but instead their number one reason is the unspecified quote "He is black." It's extremely presumptuous and doesn't focus on any issues and seems like a response that they're insulted their survey wasn't responded to.

I don't really care that they don't support Obama, because as far as I'm concerned this group does not represent me in anyway and there are far bigger players than them and they're just upset they're an e-mail bot (I took sometime to see what they've done).

I'm offended and insulted by their stupidity. At least state some issues. He is black?! Come on now.

http://80-20initiative.blogspot.com/...eat-obama.html


Why Asian Ams Need to Defeat Sen. Obama's Candidacy

Sen. Obama gave almost farcical reasons why he would not reply to OUR questionnaire. The reasons given are

1) "He is black." Hence he has to be extra careful in matters dealing with the minorities to avoid the suspicion of the majority. So is Sen. Obama hoping to build his presidency on the backs of Asian Ams suffering unequal opportunity in workplaces?! How arrogant!

2) "When he is the president, an Asian American will have a better chance to be the president." Is it logical to talk about Asian Ams' chance to be the President when he is not even willing to assure us of equal opportunity in workplaces? How blind ambition deprives an inexperienced politician of logic?!

3) His staff is fond of saying that "Obama has a brother-in-law in Conrad Ng, and it'll be such a honor for Asian Americans if Obama gets into the White House." Really? Did Obama select his brother-in-law or does Sen. Obama think Asian Americans live in ancient feudal China?

Sen. Obama often intones the "fierce urgency of now," a quote from Martin Luther King. However, he got it all wrong. Dr. King used the phrase to emphasize the urgency of equal opportunity for all Americans. Obama uses it to advance his candidacy while giving benign neglect to equal opportunity for Asian Ams and perhaps even African Americans.

Sen. Obama is too inexperienced to be our presidency. He is not ready. He has yet to develop the character and courage to stand up for America's core value -- equal opportunity.

Sen. Obama trivializes his "inexperience" by pointing to our youngest President, John F. Kennedy. How wrong Obama is. Kennedy served in the House and Senate for 14 years, from1946 to 1960, before being elected the President. Obama has only 3 years' experience in national politics -- one quarter the national experience of our youngest President -- JFK.

Here's the response from Asian Americans for Obama:

http://www.asianamericansforobama.co...ama-and-t.html

Some of you may have heard that the Asian American Pacific Islander Political Action Committee, 80-20 Initiative, which aims to create a solid AAPI voting bloc in elections to increase effectiveness as a swing vote, has issued a call to defeat Sen. Barack Obama.

80-20's call is based upon Sen. Obama's supposed refusal to answer their candidate questionnaire. Sen. Obama did not in fact refuse to respond to the questionnaire. As you can see from the official campaign response posted below, Sen. Obama strongly supports the goal of fighting discrimination against AAPIs and increasing the presence of AAPIs in government, including Article III judges. However, Sen. Obama was concerned with the wording of some of the questions, and asked 80-20 to allow some modification. This was a courtesy that was extended to other campaigns, but for whatever reason, 80-20 refused to work with Sen. Obama and reacted with negative attacks. For more details, click the link below to read the full letter.

http://www.asianamericansforobama.co...-20_Letter.pdf

For the record, Sen. Obama has had a long and admirable record of fighting for the AAPI community. It includes little things; when I first met Sen. Obama when he was a professor at my law school, I noticed that he was one of the only non-AAPI politicians I'd seen who regularly mentioned Asian Americans in speeches in discussions - something most American politicians still do not do unless speaking to an Asian American audience. This was back when Obama was polling 7th in a field of 8 Democratic primary candidates for the US Senate, and a presidential run was far from anyone's mind.

On the big things, Obama is there. Every Asian American community leader I met in Chicago told me that Sen. Obama was one of their strongest and most reliable allies in the Illinois State Senate. He is the only major candidate with an official AAPI campaign website linked off the main campaign homepage. He is the only major candidate with an active profile on AsianAve.com, the social networking website for the AAPI community. He has formed an Asian American and Pacific Islander National Leadership Council to advise on AAPI outreach. His US Senate Chief of Staff and Legislative Director are both of AAPI descent. His campaign has actively participated in AAPI political forums across the country.

I also believe that Sen. Obama is the only candidate with the background to truly understand the full range of the AAPI experience - an experience defined by immigration and the struggle for inclusion. Sen. Obama is the child of parents of different races, of different nationalities, and spent his childhood in Indonesia and multiracial Hawaii. Anyone who has spent part of their lives in a foreign country knows how that fundamentally affects your view of the world and its people. Many of us or our parents know what it's like to not be Americans and not be accepted as Americans even when we are. Respected political commentator Fareed Zakaria recently noted this quality of Obama's and discussed how his foreign background gives him a different perspective on foreign affairs from many other American journalists.

It's easy to see why Sen. Obama has earned the endorsement of the Asian American Action Fund of Greater Chicago, prominent AAPIs including former California State Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan, actors Kal Penn (The Namesake, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) and Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King), Nancy Chen, former Chicago office director of the legendary Sen. Paul Simon, Rep. Bobby Scott, the first person of Filipino descent elected to the US Congress, Sam Yoon, the first Asian American elected to the Boston City Council, and more. His record is why he overwhelmingly won the recent Asian American Action Fund straw poll in Los Angeles, California.

In the end, you must judge for yourself if Sen. Obama is the right candidate for the AAPI community based on the facts. Posted below are two documents that lay out Sen. Obama's agenda for the AAPI community. The first talks about a range of issues, and the second focuses on healthcare, one of the most important issues for an AAPI community with some of the highest levels of uninsured or underinsured families.

http://www.asianamericansforobama.co...enda_FINAL.pdf

http://www.asianamericansforobama.co...AAPI_FINAL.pdf

[bluemonq]

Question 1: Do the reasons given to defeat Obama have any grain of truth to them?
Question 2: How were the allegedly reworded questionnaires for the other candidates changed from the originals?
Question 3: How did Obama's staff want the questionnaires reworded?

I won't deny that it seems 80-20 is being at the very least petty, but I think these are questions that are... interesting for the lack of a better word.

[AngryABCGirl]

Originally Posted by bluemonq

Question 1: Do the reasons given to defeat Obama have any grain of truth to them?
Question 2: How were the allegedly reworded questionnaires for the other candidates changed from the originals?
Question 3: How did Obama's staff want the questionnaires reworded?

I won't deny that it seems 80-20 is being at the very least petty, but I think these are questions that are... interesting for the lack of a better word.

1) Other than his inexperience no. edit: Apparently all the quotes don't have sources either.

2) Contacts from the Los Angeles office, who are connected with the other candidates, said the other candidate offices were allowed to reword questionaire to answer the questions, but apparently the Obama campaign wasn't. I'll find the links later if I can.

3) They didn't have the chance.


Like I sad I don't care if they don't endorse Obama, but I care they claim to represent me and are acting like dumbasses. A lot of APIA orgs take positions I don't agree with, but at least they're doing it positively and backed by policy reasons. This is flat out inane.

Here's a chinese newspaper article that's anti-Obama that mentioned the survey, but of course not mentioning how they could not present their own answer unlike the other campaigners. I wonder what their deal with the misrepresenting.

http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-sf-ne...seq_id=1646032

[Yeahman]

80-20 is pissed that Obama is not submitting to their demand of making 80-20 more influential. Really arrogant.
But racist? I don't think so. Not even close to borderline. Stupid. Not racist.

[thaite]

Hey, good for 80/20

[SunWuKong]

i think they're arrogant and their rhetoric was out of line for just the fact that he didn't want to answer their survey without the revisions that the Obama camp wanted. all they really need to do is say that they do not endorse Obama, but this is basically a smear campaign.

having said that - i don't like Obama anyway, so i hope he doesn't get the primary.

though what i'd really like to know is exactly what revisions the Obama camp wanted, and why was 80-20 unwilling to make them? at the same time, i don't think it's entirely without merit to say that Obama needs to be extra careful in securing the white majority. there are probably a lot of white moderates that are not ready for a black president. he probably acknowledges minority voters more than the other candidates (although his main target right now seems to be young voters), but to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't exactly tackled any tough racial issues, and certainly nothing that would threaten white privilege. but to be fair, neither had the other candidates tackled tough racial issues (answering 80-20's survey certainly doesn't count, unless it's followed by actual action).

[Craig]

From what you posted it seems like "He is black" is the reason Obama's group gave for not replying affirmatively to 80-20's requests for Asian consideration. So, if that's Obama's camp response, then they are the assholes and not 80-20. If you go to the link, they post the questions they asked, and they also mention other candidates who have all replied with "yes" answers to them.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Yea I'm kinda confused. Judging from the initial post, the "he is black" justification was from Obama (or his spokespeople) no?

[applehead]

well it seems to me that 80-20 appears to be
twisting his spokespeople' words around.
80-20 is taking some of the things that were said
by his people, previously, and then using them to support their
own beliefs on why he didn't answer the questionnaire.

[AngryABCGirl]

Originally Posted by Yeahman

80-20 is pissed that Obama is not submitting to their demand of making 80-20 more influential. Really arrogant.
But racist? I don't think so. Not even close to borderline. Stupid. Not racist.

It's more the issue why was the Obama campaign selectively not given the option the other candidates did and their response by collecting various statements about his "blackness" in their reasoning why to "defeat" them rather than a policy issue.

[BeTheReds]

Well i'm making assupmtions, I am going to bet that the revisions obama wanted included removal of phrases like "including 80/20" or "appointed by 80/20" Thank you Obama.

80/20 is an e-mail, no, spammail bot. I called it before, but lots of YW peeps found a need to argue with me before.

[AngryABCGirl]

Originally Posted by BeTheReds

Well i'm making assupmtions, I am going to bet that the revisions obama wanted included removal of phrases like "including 80/20" or "appointed by 80/20" Thank you Obama.

80/20 is an e-mail, no, spammail bot. I called it before, but lots of YW peeps found a need to argue with me before.

I didn't know too much about it before until now when I saw what happened and did some research and realized all they did was a spammail and print articles in the World Journal, which is pretty much nothing. I had the assumption they were a bigger national organization, but nope.