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

[applegrove]

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

by Lloyd Green at the Daily Beast

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

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In Santa Clara County, California—the heart of Silicon Valley—Obama beat Romney by a 42-point margin. As Nate Silver documented, Obama received approximately $720,000 in contributions from Google employees, while Romney received a paltry $25,000. At Apple, the story was almost the same. Its employees gave more than nine out of every 10 campaign dollars they contributed to the president.


And it is not just a matter of votes or money. It is also a matter of campaign skills. High-tech America’s aversion to the Republican Party is wreaking havoc with mechanics of national Republican campaigns. A recent Sunday New York Times Magazine cover story highlighted the Republicans’ huge campaign-technology deficit and described at length how the party’s inability to connect with tech-savvy graduates is damaging its competitiveness. In that context, the Election Day epic failure of Romney’s ORCA operation is just another symptom of what is ailing the GOP.


To top it off, the economic resentments that motivate many voters are relatively absent among Asian-American voters. Three-quarters of Asian-Americans report that their living standard surpasses that of their parents. Nationally, the average is only 60 percent.


Regaining the votes of Asian-Americans, like making inroads with Latino voters, will be a slog for the Republican Party. It is not just about a difference in ethnicity. Rather, it is also a difference in attitude. Asian-Americans are generally more economically liberal than the GOP’s older working- and middle-class evangelical base and are less responsive to a message of unvarnished rugged individualism, despite their relative wealth and attainment. And that is a gap not easily bridged. Indeed, a party whose leadership professes a desire to drown government in a bathtub has little appeal these days to most Americans.



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