The Asian Vote - Another Lost Battlefield for the GOP?

Something has happened which should have been easily predicted: by embracing the far Christian Right - which basically hates everyone who isn't an American born white, far right Christian - and most recently the white supremacist crowd, the Republican Party has driven away other demographic groups who either are (i) non-white, (ii) non-Christian, or (iii) who don't want the likes of Tony Perkins setting policy positions.  And it's not just the Pacific rim Asians who have been alienated.  South Asians - as many of Indian descent describe themselves - also find the hate and religious extremism of the GOP base abhorrent.  Stated another way, my many Hindu clients have easily figured out that the GOP base hates them just as much as they hate gays, notwithstanding Bobby Jindal's willingness to prostitute himself to Christofascists.  A piece in Politico looks at this other demographic that the GOP has lost.  Here are excerpts:

Even in a national election shadowed by geopolitical instability and a heated debate over immigration, it’s a rare campaign that has voters hearing about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and maritime disputes between Japan and the Republic of Korea.

But in these suburbs a few miles from the nation’s capital, these are only a few of the unconventional issues rearing up in the battle for control of Congress. Candidates up and down the ballot have hurled themselves into winning over the area’s swiftly growing Asian-American population, striving to sell themselves as champions of small business and public education, and as masters of even the narrowest ethnic preoccupations.

Fairfax is only one of a lengthening list of urban and suburban battlegrounds – from northern New Jersey to the greater Atlanta area, to the streets of Minneapolis and Las Vegas and up and down the West Coast – where the two national parties have focused with new intensity this year on wooing this expansive and diverse immigrant population.

Spurred by President Barack Obama’s landslide victory among Asian-American voters in 2012 and new government data showing Asians outstripping Latinos as the fastest-growing immigrant population, prominent elected officials on both sides of the aisle have called for a stepped-up focus on Americans of Asian descent.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn . . . . called it essential that the GOP start “showing up” before these communities’ distrust of Republicans gets cemented in place.  “That is a trajectory for permanent minority status and we have to do something about it,” said Cornyn, the number-two Republican in the Senate. “I’m astonished to hear what our opponents tell people about Republicans, to some groups, when we’re not there.”

California Rep. Judy Chu, the Democrat who leads the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said both parties increasingly see Asian Americans as a “margin of victory” population in some especially challenging races. 

Pollsters warn that it’s difficult to generalize about Asian-American voters, mainly because it’s a vastly diverse population. Indian Americans, Thai immigrants and voters of Korean descent may share an ancestral continent, but it’s hard to say they represent a cohesive electoral bloc.

Yet partisan strategists and Asian-American activists say that even across culturally disparate immigrant groups, there are common preoccupations – an intense focus on education, for instance, and concern about the economic environment for small, family-owned businesses.

Increasingly, there is also a broad affinity for the Democratic Party – seen overwhelmingly as the party that stands for racial and ethnic diversity, and a more inclusive federal immigration policy.

In 2012, Asian Americans voted for the president by a larger margin – 47 points – even than Latinos. In swing-state Virginia, where Asian Americans made up 3 percent of the electorate, they supported Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine by 32 points.

Here in Fairfax, local leaders call Northern Virginia a snapshot of the whole country’s political and demographic future, with both elected officials and ethnic community leaders a few big steps ahead of other swing-state colleagues when it comes to political engagement and community outreach.

Even here, however, the change has come swiftly enough to transform the politics of the region in less than one political generation. Beyer, who will easily capture a safe Democratic House seat next week, recalled his early campaigns for public office: “My first race was 25 years ago and I don’t even remember [Asian American outreach] being in my list of 24 campaign priorities.”

“Now, increasingly, the Asian American vote, along with the Latino vote and the Muslim vote – which of course is kind of pan-Asian – they’re very important,” said Beyer, who emphasized just how heterogeneous the ethnic groups of his future district are. “The Chinese are different from the Filipinos, who are different from the Japanese. I don’t find any one theme works – except for economic opportunity and inclusion.”

The GOP can talk all it wants about economic opportunity, but as long as it remains the party of exclusion, white supremacy, and hatred towards non-Christians, the Asians I know are not going to fall for the disingenuous out reach.  The saying goes that you are known by the company you keep, and the GOP keeps some pretty ugly and racist company.  Here in Virginia, the Republican Party is owned by the white supremacist religious extremists at The Family Foundation.  That's not how one wins the Asian vote - or Hispanics or progressives either.