2012 Election

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The Asian-American vote

It is easy to find stories about the Latino and African American vote which was critical to Democratic success but the Asian American vote was also something the Republican Party may want to consider.

Beyond the election of Japanese American Mazie Hirono (a little ethnic pride here), the first Asian American woman Senator, the Asian American (the Obama campaign called us AAPI for Asian American Pacific Islanders) went overwhelming for the President.

From Politico

While Asians only constituted 2 percent of the national electorate, in some states they made up a considerably higher proportion. In California, for example, they represented 11 percent of the vote.

“With 73 percent of AAPIs [Asian-American and Pacific Islanders] voting for Obama, we are clearly an undeniable and unshakable political power,” said California Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, chairman emeritus of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, in an email. “As the fastest growing ethnic community in the country, we are the margin of victory.”

The National Journal reports

President Obama carried 73 percent of the Asian vote on Tuesday, continuing a two-decade-long march of Asian-Americans toward the Democratic Party in presidential politics.

Obama improved his performance among Asian-Americans more than among any other ethnic group between 2008 and 2012, according to exit polling. His support in the community jumped 11 percentage points, from 62 percent in 2008.

The 73 percent support that Obama garnered was the highest since national exit polls began tallying the Asian vote, and it marked the fifth straight presidential election in which the Democratic nominee attracted a greater share of the Asian-American vote.

President Clinton won only 31 percent of the Asian-American vote in 1992. His vice president, Al Gore, was the first Democrat to capture a majority of the community, with 54 percent support when Gore ran for president in 2000.

The Boston Globe had a longer story with some very interesting observations.

State Representative Tackey Chan, a Quincy Democrat, said Obama’s personal biography also appeals to many Asian-American voters.

“He knows what it’s like to have an immigrant parent, to struggle a little,” Chan said. “He spent some time in Indonesia growing up. I think they feel like he’s more likable and more sensitive to issues affecting Asian-Americans.”

In Massachusetts the Asian American vote was helped by Elizabeth Warren’s campaign outreach.

Nam Pham, executive director of the Vietnamese American Initiative for Development in Dorchester, said simple outreach can win votes.

“In our culture, we respect people who show us respect,” Pham said. “If you show people that you care, they will listen.”

Pham’s group helped to register about 300 Vietnamese-Americans for the election on a nonpartisan basis, but Pham said most of them probably voted for Democrats.

“In the Senate race, the [Elizabeth] Warren campaign did an excellent job of visiting and telling people here who they are and why they should vote for her,” Pham said. “[Scott] Brown was almost invisible in the Asian community.”

Scott Brown’s implication that Elizabeth Warren’s success was because she “checked the box” was also offensive.

Brown implied that Warren had advanced in her career as a law professor because she at one point claimed to have Native American ancestry. His suggestion was that she had taken undeserved advantage of affirmative action programs.

The strategy has been blamed for alienating women voters, by insinuating that Warren hadn’t earned her career accomplishments. Chan said the tactic also offended minorities, by diminishing theirs.

“Are you saying minorities only get ahead because they’re minorities?” he said. “It’s saying if you’re a minority, you automatically get a step up.”

But the two big reasons nationally appear to be health care and a shared immigrant experience.  As Lisa Hasegawa (no relation, but I have met her) pointed out

The final result aligned closely with a survey taken on the eve of Election Day by the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, which also showed 60 percent support for government-guaranteed access to health insurance, much higher than the overall electorate.

“A lot of Asian-Americans come from places with subsidized health care, where that’s an expectation, and it’s an important issue for them,” said Lisa Hasegawa, the coalition’s executive director.

If you want to know why this all matters nationally, think Virginia.  Specifically, think Northern Virginia where the Asian American population is only growing.  Think margin of victory in a divided country.

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A huge win

Americans voted to give President Obama a second chance to change Washington.

The re-election of Barack Obama last night was a huge win in many ways.  I went to bed after the confetti dropped in Chicago and woke up too early with my head still spinning.  I figure I can sleep later.  So who won besides the President?  Here are a few of my thoughts.

Last night was a win for everyone who has been supporting a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans.  Politico summarizes the exit polling this way

Six in 10 voters nationwide say they think taxes should be increased, a welcome  statistic for President  Barack Obama and a sign that the president’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s  proposed tax cuts  for the wealthy may have been effective.

Almost half of voters said taxes should be boosted on Americans making more than  $250,000 per year, and one in seven voters said taxes should be increased on all  Americans.

I think the Democratic wins in the Senate as well as the President’s re-election reflect this.  It is a loss for Grover Nordquist perhaps Republicans in Congress can now forget that silly pledge and negotiate all the fiscal and budget issues hanging over us.

This was a big win for the ground game over big money.  The Adelsons, Roves and Kochs of the world can’t buy an election. The Senate wins by Tim Kaine and Sherrod Brown showed that if you turn out voters, all the negative spending on advertising can’t buy the election.  I watched and worked the ground game here in Massachusetts using the same database that was used by Democrats all over the country.  All the information added this election should only help Democrats in the future.  This email sent last night under the President’s name tells the story

I’m about to go speak to the crowd here in Chicago, but I wanted to thank you first.

I want you to know that this wasn’t fate, and it wasn’t an accident. You made this happen.

You organized yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this campaign five and ten dollars at a time. And when it wasn’t easy, you pressed forward.

I will spend the rest of my presidency honoring your support, and doing what I can to finish what we started.

But I want you to take real pride, as I do, in how we got the chance in the first place.

Today is the clearest proof yet that, against the odds, ordinary Americans can overcome powerful interests.

There’s a lot more work to do.

But for right now: Thank you.

The election was a huge win for people of color,  for marriage equality (Maine and Maryland, and probably Minnesota) and for an American that is changing.  From the Washington Post

The electorate was less white (from 74 percent in 2008 to 72 percent this year), more Latino (9 percent to 10 percent), just as African-American (13 percent to 13 percent), more female (53 percent to 54 percent), more low-income (38 percent making less than $50,000 in 2008 to 41 percent Tuesday) and — perhaps most remarkably, younger (18 percent to 19 percent).

It all suggests that Obama’s laser-like focus on turning out each of his key constituencies — minorities, women and young people — paid dividends.

And in many cases, these groups backed him as much or more as in 2008.

Women gave Obama 55 percent of the vote and low-income voters gave him 60 percent, about the same as four years ago.

Latinos gave Obama 67 percent of their vote four years ago, and 71 percent on Tuesday.

I think the racially tinged and anti-immigrant Republican campaign made people angry and they were angry enough to come out to vote.  Until the Republican party learns to deal with the changing demographics in this country, they will become more and more powerless.

And my final thought for right now – this was a huge win for Nate Silver.  For those of us who put our trust in him, this was vindication.  His final map looks suspiciously like the final map but if Florida continues today as it is trending, I think he underestimated the Electoral College vote.  Nate predicted 313 electoral votes but with Florida it will be 332.

[Photograph:  Doug Mills/The New York Times]

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Report from my precinct

People are still in line to vote here in the City of Boston, but my Roxbury precinct voted in record numbers.  617 ballots out of about 900 or so registered voter.  Obama/Biden got 583 to Romney/Ryan’s 20.  Elizabeth Warren got 576 votes to Scott Brown’s 35.

No winners called yet in Massachusetts, but in my neighborhood we have winners.  It was worth the work.

More reports to come.

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Early, early signs on election day

It is very early on election day and I leave to get some volunteers started at our polling place.  It is going to be a long day.  But there are some signs:

Dixville Notch has voted:  It is a tie:  5 to 5.  In 2008 they voted for Obama 15 to 6.  The population is down, but this is still New Hampshire and which is very close.   Read this any way you want to.

Nate Silver’s final numbers:

Electoral College –  Obama 314.6    Romney 223.4

Change of winning – Obama 91.6     Romney 8.4

Popular vote –  Obama 50.9     Romney 48.3

Mother Jones managed to catch up with 5 of the 11 people who asked questions at the town hall debate.  (Remember they are in the Hurricane Sandy zone.)

At the second presidential debate, a town hall forum held at Hofstra University, 11 undecided voters from Long Island asked President Obama and Mitt Romney questions on a range of issues, including unemployment, gun control, and equal pay for women. Mother Jones caught up with five of them, all of whom are still dealing with the aftermath of Sandy, and asked if they finally have decided. Results? Four of the five say they’re voting for Obama.

The one who isn’t for Obama is “Leaning Romney”.  The reasons are interesting.

What does this all mean?  We will know late tonight.  In the meanwhile I’ll leave the last word to Nate Silver

But Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College have slipped, and are now only about 8 percent according to the forecast model — down from about 30 percent 10 days ago.

The most notable recent case of a candidate substantially beating his polls on Election Day came in 1980, when national surveys had Ronald Reagan only two or three points ahead of Jimmy Carter, and he won in a landslide instead. That year is not comparable to this one in many respects: the economy is much better now, there is not a major third-party candidate in the race, and Mr. Obama’s approval ratings are about 50 percent rather than 35 percent for Mr. Carter. And in 1980, Mr. Reagan had late momentum following the presidential debate that year, whereas this year the momentum seems to favor Mr. Obama.

All of this leaves Mr. Romney drawing to an inside straight. I hope you’ll excuse the cliche, but it’s appropriate here: in poker, making an inside straight requires you to catch one of 4 cards out of 48 remaining in the deck, the chances of which are about 8 percent. Those are now about Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast

As any poker player knows, those 8 percent chances do come up once in a while. If it happens this year, then a lot of polling firms will have to re-examine their assumptions — and we will have to re-examine ours about how trustworthy the polls are. But the odds are that Mr. Obama will win another term.

Voters wait in lines for absentee ballots in Doral, Fla. on Sunday. (AP)

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Why voting for Obama is important in blue states

If you are like me and live in a state that has already an insurmountable lead for President Obama’s re-election you might be tempted to vote third party, but it is still important for you to vote for Obama.  Why?  The popular vote total.  The pundits and headlines will continue to say the race is tied.  Forget the electoral college which in most estimates have Obama now over the 279 mark with some headed to 300.  No it is the popular vote where there is potential trouble.

Willard Mitt is too close for comfort. This morning Nate Silver puts it at 50.6 to 48.3 or a 2.3% margin for the President.  The margin of error is 2.1.  Much of the Romney vote comes from Red States and that is what is making it look close.  Unless Obama wins both the popular vote and the electoral college, the Republicans can complain about the results.  You know they will.  They are already beginning to blame Hurricane Sandy for the loss.

Of course, we won’t know until the votes are counted how things will turn out.  Polls can be wrong and folks like Nate depend on aggregating polls, but as an Obama supporter, I do feel hopeful.

Also it looks as if Elizabeth Warren will beat Senator Scott Brown.  Let’s hope that’s the last time I have to call him that!  And better yet, it is beginning to look like my old friend, Tim Kaine, will win in Virginia.

This shows President Clinton, President Obama and Tim Kaine.  This is an important sign:  The Democratic Senate candidate is not running from the President.  In a purple state.

So if you live in a blue state, don’t be thinking your vote for Obama doesn’t matter because it does.

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Starting the big push for Elizabeth Warren

I’ve been doing little bits and pieces  for Elizabeth Warren’s campaign since August, but the big push to election day starts today.  Interesting that Scott Brown didn’t want to participate in a rescheduled debate which would have taken place last night.  I think he is seeing the growing agreement between the polls and realizes that he is losing.  He certainly lost ground while debating.  This is from Monday.

Senator Scott Brown said today that there was no need for a final debate with Elizabeth Warren, his Democratic opponent, while she said she would be willing to participate in a rescheduled match-up on Thursday night.

Brown did not rule out rescheduling the debate, which had been slated for tonight, but made clear that he had little interest in doing so.

I’m not sure another debate would have changed much, but there you go.  Brown went from “I have a truck and can pick her up”  to “I’m too busy.” between Friday and Tuesday.  Do you think that it had to do with the Suffolk University poll that showed Warren up by 7?

Garry Trudeau has been running an occassional series on the campaign featuring Joanie Caucus as a Warren staffer.  If Joanie can keep pushing after hip surgery, so can the rest of us.

Doonesbury

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Obama vs. Romney: A comparison for voters

Cartoonist Jen Sorensen has created this handy guide for those who still aren’t certain if they really want to vote for Obama (the reluctant left) and the still undecideds.

Sorensen adds

These are but a few examples. Turning Medicare into a voucher program, radicalizing the Supreme Court for a generation, and displaying an open hostility toward science probably won’t help things either. Obama isn’t perfect, but as far as I’m concerned, voting is a moral arithmetic problem with a clear answer.

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Who is gonna win? Updated

Updated November 3.  There is another informal poll that is going for President Obama – the 7/Eleven poll.  As of this morning the President is ahead 50 to 41.  According to their press release, they have correctly predicted the last three elections.

 

Woke up this morning to see Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight updated just after midnight to give President Obama 299 electoral votes with a 77.4% chance of winning.  We all know that polls are volatile and that will shift, but we now have two non-poll polls that give the race to the President.

Politico reports

A group of people who have accurately predicted the winner of the popular  vote in the last four presidential elections thinks President Barack Obama is headed for a second  term: the American people.

Fifty-four percent of Americans think Obama will win the election, compared  to 32 percent who predict a Romney victory, according to Gallup polling released Wednesday but conducted  before Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast. Eleven percent have no  opinion.

This is down two points from a similar poll taken in May.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday found a similar result:  53 percent of registered voters believed Obama would win, compared to 29 percent  for Romney.

In the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 election, Americans accurately predicted the  popular vote winner. The gap between Obama and Romney is similar to the gap  between Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000. Fifty-two percent of registered  voters thought then-Vice President Gore would defeat the Texas governor, while  35 percent thought Bush would win.

We all know that Gore did win the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College by one.

Barack Obama is seen at the White House. |AP Photo

There was a similar non-poll which has been running longer with pretty good accuracy.  I am talking about the Nickelodeon kids poll.  On October 22, the Washington Post reported

Nickelodeon’s Linda Ellerbee said Monday that the president captured 65 percent of the vote to beat Republican Mitt Romney in the network’s “Kids Pick the President” vote. More than 520,000 people cast online ballots through the children’s network’s website over one week earlier this month.

Since it began in 1988, the kids have presaged the adults’ vote all but once, when more youngsters voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush in 2004.Obama answered questions submitted by Nickelodeon viewers for a special earlier this month. Romney didn’t participate.
Does that last tell you anything?  No late night television, no answering questions from kids.  I think Mitt Romney is out of touch and that is going to help cost him both the popular vote – which will be close – and the electoral college.
Photograph from AP
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Two etch-a-sketch poems

Calvin Trillin has written two Mitt poems featuring the etch-a-sketch.

Mitt Doesn’t Think That Nearly Half the People In This Country Are Moochers After All

He was, he says, completely wrong;
To care for everyone is vital.
He’s singing now a different song,
And “Etch A Sketch” is that song’s title.

Foreign Policy Debate   

Mitt seemed to agree with Obama a lot.
Divergence in policy got hard to spot.
He used all the moderate words he could muster.
So where was the Mittster’s past neocon bluster?
He knew that those still undecided would hate it.
The answer then is that the Etch A Sketch ate it.

Eric Fehrnstrom told us this was going to happen and it has.  I guess he is the one person in the Romney campaign who can tell the truth.

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Race: the elephant in the room

If you look behind the numbers of most polls, President Obama is losing the white male, and to a lesser extent, the white female voter.  Why you may ask yourself are these folks voting against their own self-interest?  There is a fear of change.  Fear of loss of power.  And race is at the core.  If I had any doubts about this, they were ended with the reactions of John McCain and John Sununu about Colin Powell’s endorsement of President Obama yesterday.

John Sununu who is not known for his rationality said in an interview with Piers Morgan

“When you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that’s an endorsement based on issues or whether he’s got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama,” Mr. Sununu said.

Mr. Morgan asked flatly, “What reason would that be?”

Mr. Sununu responded, “Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.”

Do you think Sununu has endorsed Mitt Romney because Romney is white?  I don’t think so.

Sununu later released this statement

Colin Powell is a friend and I respect the endorsement decision he made, I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the President’s policies. Piers Morgan’s question was whether Colin Powell should leave the party, and I don’t think he should.

John McCain was not as overt saying

Mr. Powell had “harmed” his legacy by endorsing Mr. Obama a second time. Appearing on Brian Kilmeade’s radio program, Mr.  McCain said “General Powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what is clearly the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime.”

Remarks like these from leaders of the Republican party help to fuel the ugly streak we see in the election.  The billboards in minority communities telling people voter fraud is a crime, the t-shirts with the logo “put the white back in the White House”, and the persistent view that the President is not a citizen and certainly not Christian.  David Sirota wrote a piece titled “5 Signs Racism Still Rules Politics”  which is quite instructive.

1. Joe Biden Is almost never called a socialist or a Marxist. Despite a Senate voting record and presidential policymaking record that align him with moderate Republicans from a mere decade ago, Obama is regularly derided as a socialist, a communist or a Marxist. By contrast, Obama’s own white running mate, Joe Biden, has as liberal — or at times even more liberal — a voting record as Obama, but (save for the occasional Newt Gingrich  outburst) is almost never referred to in such inflammatory terms.

2. Romneycare is Obamacare, yet the latter is criticized. It’s a well-known, undisputed fact that Romneycare was a conservative health insurance model constructed by the right-wing  Heritage Foundation , and that it was Massachusetts’ state-level  model for the federal healthcare bill ultimately championed by President Obama. Nonetheless, under the first African-American president, the very same healthcare model the GOP championed is now being held up by the GOP as a redistributionist boondoggle

3. A white president would never be criticized for these statements about Trayvon Martin. No white president has ever been blamed for the varied and disparate transgressions committed by white folk.

What the President said was

“When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together.”

4. America would neither ignore nor laugh off a young black male relative of Obama publicly fantasizing about violence against a presidential candidate. As I reported last week, Romney’s son, Tagg Romney, cheerily riffed on his fantasies about committing an act of violence against a sitting president of the United States.

5. If one of Obama’s teenage daughters was unmarried and pregnant, it wouldn’t be considered a “private” matter.When Sarah Palin was put on the Republican ticket in 2008, Bristol Palin’s pregnancy did not initiate a national discussion about the issue of teen pregnancy, unprotected sex or promiscuous fornication outside of wedlock.

Pictures show the difference between the crowds at rallies.  You rarely see any brown or black faces at Romney rallies.  His crowds tend to be older and whiter.

Mitt Romney arrives to campaign at Worthington Industries, a metal processing company, in Worthington, Ohio, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. | AP Photo

Let me end with some observations from Eugene Robinson.

This election is only tangentially a fight over policy. It is also a fight about meaning and identity — and that’s one reason voters are so polarized. It’s about who we are and who we aspire to be.President Obama enters the final days of the campaign with a substantial lead among women — about 11 points, according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — and enormous leads among Latinos and African Americans, the nation’s two largest minority groups. Mitt Romney leads among white voters, with an incredible 2-to-1 advantage among white men.
It is too simplistic to conclude that demography equals destiny. Both men are being sincere when they vow to serve the interests of all Americans. But it would be disingenuous to pretend not to notice the obvious cleavage between those who have long held power in this society and those who are beginning to attain it.When Republicans vow to “take back our country,” they never say from whom. But we can guess.
Robinson concludes

Issues may explain our sharp political divisions, but they can’t be the cause of our demographic polarization. White men need medical care, too. African Americans and Latinos understand the need to get our fiscal house in order. The recession and the slow recovery have taken a toll across the board.

Some of Obama’s opponents have tried to delegitimize his presidency because he doesn’t embody the America they once knew. He embodies the America of now.

I can’t help but feel that if President Obama wins a second term we will have turned a corner –  whether the Republicans can accept it or not.  If the country is not to continue on this divided path the Republicans deal the elephant of race.

UPDATE:

Charles Blow has an interesting chart in Saturday’s New York Times.

Both photographs by AP.