Some Speculation Regarding Asian-American Voting Patterns in 2012

Noahpinion asks: “[W]hy did Asian-Americans break so strongly for Obama? I provide my (slightly different) answer.


As Noahpinion observes, given Asian American’s higher than average income, the Romney-esque argument that the group is one of “takers” not “makers” cannot be correct (of course, there is little empirical content to this particular thesis, anyway). 2012 was not an isolated event, by the way.


asianamer1.gif

Source: Monkey Cage. [Replaced graphic for California. 4:30PM Pacific — mdc]

I am not a political scientist, and so am not particularly well-qualified to provide a proper quantitative analysis. But I can at least relay some thoughts based upon my own experiences on why some Chinese-Americans of a certain background might not feel comfortable with the Republican party. First, consider the composition of the party leadership, as represented by the new House Committee Chairmen:


asianamer2.jpg

Source: DailyKos.

Of course, it’s the policies that matter more. And here, I think the key factor of importance to Chinese-Americans is pragmatism (the generation of my parents — who came from China — saw enough rigid, dogmatic ideology run amok, thank you very much), and a belief in progress by way of science and technology. In this vein, Richard Posner speculates that Asian-Americans lean toward the Democratic party, despite the low-tax rate stance of the Republican party, because:

… being well educated as a group, Asian Americans may be disturbed by the hostility to science, particularly evolutionary biology, which Republican supporters and politicians have exhibited of late.

Charles Murray tries to explain Asian-American voting as pure mis-apprehension, to wit:

…Republicans are seen by Asians—as they are by Latinos, blacks, and some large proportion of whites—as the party of Bible-thumping, anti-gay, anti-abortion creationists. Factually, that’s ludicrously inaccurate.

I’ll let readers decide if that characterization is so ludicrous. In any case, data on comparative education and income in shown below.


asianamer3.gif

Source: Pew Research Center

In other words, for the Republican party to make inroads into the Asian-American voting bloc (which split 73-26 in favor of Obama), they will need to do more than make some vague noises about greater ethnic inclusion. They will need to think more deeply about whether the age of the earth is closer to 4000 or 4 billion years, whether females can negate unwanted pregnancies merely by willing it,
and whether statistical theory and/or the central limit theorem is bunk.


On a personal note, I would add that ads like this [broken link updated 7:40, thanks to bearish — mdc] do not endear the Republicans to Chinese-Americans (and I suspect to other Asian-Americans). I am uncertain, however, that an ever more ethnically and geographically concentrated Republican party will be able to resist resorting to such appeals in the future.


Update, 2:26PM Pacific: The political scientists at Monkey Cage have weighed in, roughly contemporaneously with my post.

49 thoughts on “Some Speculation Regarding Asian-American Voting Patterns in 2012

  1. jonathan

    You can ask the same questions about Jewish-Americans. High income, vote for Obama. This despite extremely hardcore support for Israel by the GOP and the visibility of Jewish Republicans like Cantor and the antipathy of Wall Street toward Obama. While Wall Street is only Jewish-controlled in racist fantasies i does have Jews and we can assume they tend to vote along with their firms.
    Why? Policy.
    I can give a number of specific examples.
    1. Education policy. The most devout Jews tend to vote GOP because they want to be left alone by the state – even to the point of seeking to run their own religiously exclusive private school districts. But if you ask other Jews about the GOP’s education policies, the typical response is a form of disbelief. The primacy of creationism, the intrusion of overt Christianity, the anti-science nonsense, all speak to a dual concern: the state needs to protect us and needs to help people succeed through education.
    2. To build on that, Jews tend to believe in community and that means the community of the people, the locale, etc. up to the country level. A community has obligation. An obligation is to provide for the poor. Another obligation is to educate. Jews tend to find the GOP’s social policies incomprehensible; why exactly is it bad to provide health care to children? Why should a child be penalized? Why should a family be bankrupted by an illness? Why should a child not be able to go to school because of a parent’s illness? Jews see these not only as good for the country but as community obligations. Yes there are limits and these should be discussed but that’s not even possible to do when the GOP is obsessed with imposing moral beliefs and cutting taxes.
    As a further note, if you look it up, Andrew Gelman – I think – has posted some analysis of voting by income groups. His map shows that people making in 6 figures don’t always vote for the GOP, that the map follows largely the Blue/Red division. So the NE and the West, the two most prosperous areas, have a majority of higher earners voting Democratic – meaning for Obama – while the Red states did not. If you break it down by county, you see states in the North in particular tend to be “purple”, meaning mixed.
    The poorer states plus Texas – which is overall still somewhat poor – clearly voted for Romney at the 6 figure plus level. In other words, the white people there did. And that speaks volumes because the white people in the richer parts voted much more for Obama. This says to me the people in poorer parts are worried about keeping what they have while those in the richer areas believe more in future prosperity. This, btw, seems to be particularly matched in the division between CA and the financier parts of NYC: the people who actually make the companies that provide the jobs of the internet age all voted for Obama while the money-lenders voted for Romney. The makers versus the takers with the makers going for Obama.

  2. Brian

    I’m a smaller government, lower-tax-loving Republican, but I’m not religious, believe in evolution, and think the earth is somewhere around 4.5 billion years old. Not all of us are wingnuts who think Jesus rode around on the back of a dinosaur a la Fred Flintstone. Don’t make so many broad generalizations.

  3. dilbert dogbert

    Remember the impact of American religious fundamentalists had on Korean culture post WW2. Some of this impact can be seen in Africa too. Uganda comes to mind.
    The reunification of N and S Korea will be an interesting cultural clash – maybe.

  4. Freude Bud

    I think it’s particularly telling that the GOP has become the anti-science party–until that changes they will not be getting my vote.
    I also suspect that the rhetoric regarding currency manipulation might have turned off some Chinese-Americans and even perhaps Asian-Americans in general. Surely GOP hostility to immigration makes them no friends in those communities either.

  5. Bearish

    After years and years of dog-whistling politics designed to stoke white resentment against minorities and foreigners, foreign-looking minorities and immigrants, it’s not a surprise that the Republicans are having a hard time courting the very groups that it tried to demonize. Asian-Americans have a long history of being victims of prejudice against racial minorities and immigrants and still struggle to be accepted fully as Americans without hyphens. The fundamental appeal of the Republican platform is nostalgia for the past and for many, that past means an America much more clearly dominated by the White establishment, where advancement was difficult for non-Whites and non-White President was unimaginable. Needlessly to say Asian-Americans don’t miss this America of the past that many Republicans desperately cling to.

    You can say the same thing about Jewish Americans, LGBT groups, African Americans, Latinos, etc. The vision of America that resonates with these groups that still face significant prejudice is America that moves forward to break new grounds, fight prejudice and unfair stereotypes and address problems of the present and the future, not America that is stuck admiring the glory of its past while fearing that the rise of these once-marginalized groups is a sign of America’s decline.

  6. tj

    Menzie, why all the hate for conservative white males? (CWM’s)
    Does your department have separate wash rooms and dining areas for them?
    Does a CWM vote count the same as your vote at faculty senate meetings?
    Do you know that research supports the claim that it’s nature not nurture that determines whether a white boy will grow up to be a CWM?
    Did you know that CWM’s were granted minority status in 2008 with full protection under the equal rights laws?
    Naturally, once CWM’s were granted minority status, President Obama immediately began pandering to them, showering their Wall Street firms with hundreds of billions of dollars in low interest loans and tax credits. Don’t forget the rural CWM’s, who, after decades of scratching a subsistence living from the ground they farm, are now flush with cash from ethanol mandates. (Never mind a few hundred million of the world’s poorest would prefer to be able to afford food rather than see the CWMs’ pockets lined with government(taxpayer) handouts.)
    So go ahead and stereotype, CWM bash and discriminate, while we stupid CWMs muddle along in our wars on women, blacks, hispanics, science, religion, farmers, city folk, poor, sick, the environment, etc.
    Excuse me, it’s time to go push granny and her wheelchair off the cliff.

  7. Menzie Chinn

    tj: I merely wanted to point out the decided lack of diversity in the group photo posted. If you want to argue that it actually does represent diversity, then please do so. In the spirit of open, intellectual exchange, I look forward to your reply.

    If you have difficulty with my characterization of how the Republican party is viewed, take it up with Richard Posner and Charles Murray.

    brian: Obviously, there is dispersion of views in the overall Republican party. But at this juncture, it is the leadership of the Republican party that is being heard, and heard loudly on these issues. In order for views to be changed, then, you must influence your leaders’ views, or change them.

  8. benamery21

    I’m looking forward, assuming I haven’t missed it, to the AALDEF breakdown of the Asian-American exit polling by ethnicity. Assuming that the Republican substitution of Mormon missionary Mitt for POW Mccain didn’t swing Vietnamese-American voters to support Obama on net (they broke 2 for 1 for Mccain in 2008), the consensus among the remaining segments of the Asian-American electorate is even stronger.

  9. S weil

    Menzie
    From your graph It seems that the late 90s was a turning point away from the Republicans. At that time I had Chinese-American friends who were appalled by the Repub Congress/Cox Commission/Wen Ho Lee prosecution which was a pure ethnic profiling sham. I wonder how wide-spread the revulsion was.

  10. Menzie Chinn

    Noah Smith: Thanks! Yes, there is anti-scientism there; but isn’t interesting we’re surprised by anti-scientism there, but not in (for instance) Texas textbooks.

    dilbert dogbert: No handy picture. Senate committee chairs here. Senate leadership (with pictures) here.

    Freude Bud: I am not sure the Asian-American group is particularly pro-immigration, from my casual reading. Certainly, it’s an empirical question.

    S weil: I’m uncertain how important these factors were; I’ll only add the treatment of Bill Lan Lee’s nomination to Attorney General by the Republican leadership of the time probably did not help. In other words, there is a long history.

  11. tj

    Menzie,
    No dispute at all with your photo. I was just having a little fun with the topic. It was all tongue in cheek. I keep forgetting to put smiley’s at the end of my humorous posts for the humor impaired.
    Contrary to popular belief, conservatives actually value policies over skin color, ethnicity, gender etc. We just need to get rid of the old boys network controlling D.C.
    I wouldn’t hold it against anyone who missed these minority speakers at the RNC last summer. The networks didn’t devote much time to their speeches.
    Marco Rubio.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16VbryCejyA&feature=player_embedded
    Mia Love
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfop5TeDnZo&feature=player_embedded
    Nikki Haley
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=z-3nH1UTZjI
    Condoleeza Rice
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g6PpIW3hPg&feature=player_embedded
    Susan Martinez
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjbtxupVo6I&feature=player_embedded
    Sher Valenzuela
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xkNTK2GTA_E
    Ray Fernandez
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AOl2QxapJw0

  12. Jack

    Menzie,
    I have thought of this many times before, but have been hesitent to bring this up before on Dr. Hamilton’s blog. After all, I really respect his ability to make nuanced arguments that stimulates thoughtful reflection. More importantly, I’m not completely sure of his political affiliation because of how he presents his arguments. This is opposed to your approach of flinging out politically charged opinions masquerading as tightly reasoned economic theory.
    However, as you have invited “… the spirit of open, intellectual exchange”, I’ll bite.
    Here’s one…
    Economics is not math.
    http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/economics-not-math

  13. Rick Stryker

    Menzie,
    The reasons you offer to explain Asian support for the President has little to do with reality. The survey evidence makes clear that Asian Americans are predominantly liberal. For example, 55% of Asian Americans prefer a larger activist government compared with 39% of the general population. And a majority are in favor of gay marriage and legalized abortion. It has nothing to do with alleged Republican support of creationism or disbelief in the central limit theorem.
    http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2012/06/SDT-The-Rise-of-Asian-Americans-Full-Report.pdf

  14. Rick Stryker

    Menzie,
    Here is how Rubio answered the age of the earth question:
    Q: How old do you think the Earth is?
    A: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.
    And here is how Senator Obama answered a similar question in 2008:
    Q: Senator, if one of your daughters asked you—and maybe they already have—“Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?
    A: What I’ve said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don’t presume to know.
    Note the similarity in the answers. Neither politician will just come out and state the age of the earth. The reason for that is, contrary to your constant insinuations, both know that belief in young earth creationism is unfortunately common among both Republicans and Democrats. See this Gallup survey:
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

  15. Rick Stryker

    Menzie,
    Yet another cheap shot in which you allege that Republicans denied statistics or the central limit theorem. That’s not what happened at all.
    The reason many Republicans distrusted the polls had to do with the little understood practice of weighting polls by party ID. Polls that showed Obama up typically weighted their samples consistent with the 2008 party ID split, which implied that Democratic turnout would be 6 points greater than Republican. Pollsters like Rasmussen and apparently Romney’s pollsters thought that the actual turnout would be in between 2004 and 2008. That’s how Rasmussen did it–he weighted by 2010 turnout which was about evenly split between Republican and Democrat. It turned out however that turnout in 2012 followed 2008 almost exactly, which is why Republicans got it wrong.
    Speaking of the central limit theorem, a simple application of it got you to Nate Silver’s results without all the fancy modeling. When you looked at the electoral map, Romney could not win without Ohio and the RCP average showed Obama up by 2 points on average.
    If p is Obama’s percent of the vote and q is Romney’s, the central limit theorem implies that the distribution of p-q is normal with mean p – q and standard deviation sqrt((p(1-p) + q(1-q) + 2pq)/(N-1)) when sample size N is large. If we take p = 48% and q = 46% and N = 1000, the probability that p – q is greater than 0 (i.e., that Obama is actually leading) was about 74%, using the cumulative normal distribution function.
    So Romney’s problem was clear. Republican’s believed (hoped perhaps) that the polls were biased by the party ID weighting and thus the race was actually much closer than Nate Silver, who was just averaging poll results, thought.

  16. Frank Youell

    The Republicans are anti-science? Is that a joke or what? Who fell for the autism / thimerosal BS? Democrats or Republicans?
    However, the elephant in the room is evolution. Let me quote from (liberal) David Weigel.
    “The grand master of the Bell Curve is used to liberals pointing and sputtering at his conclusions. He typically pre-empts this by burying them with research — research they, the sort of people who believe that human evolution happened but that human biodiversity is a myth, sure have not done.”
    Who are those folks who adamantly believe that human evolution is fact and human biodiversity is a myth? Liberals and Democrats.

  17. Frank Youell

    From another website on why Asians (now) vote Democratic
    “However, that doesn’t explain why a generally well educated, economically successful group (actually several groups) would be more Democratic than Hispanics.
    As best I can tell, the shift is cultural. At one time, American society was overtly assimilationist (and proud of it). Immigrants were encouraged (pressured, coerced, etc.) to join the mainstream. Rather than retaining their native cultures, values, and ideas they were told to adopt everything American. Indeed, the American definition of assimilation required the immigrant to give up all things “foreign” other than his religion and his last name (even that had to go in some cases).
    This wasn’t just an idea from 1900. As recently as 1967, Norman Podhoretz wrote about how Jews could only gain acceptance in elite American circle by giving up their ethnic identity, and becoming ersatz WASPs. …
    Assimilation didn’t make immigrants (or more relevantly their children), Republicans. However, it strongly encourage immigrants to identify with the mainstream of American society. That made them (first and second generation immigrants) open to the ideas and values of the Republicans.
    Conversely, American society today is very overtly anti-assimilationist. The new ideology is “diversity” (as in “celebrate diversity”) where each person is strongly encouraged to define him or herself in opposition to the mainstream. That makes voting for the left inevitable and inexorable.”

  18. Frank Youell

    “As Noahpinion observes, given Asian American’s higher than average income, the Romney-esque argument that the group is one of “takers” not “makers” cannot be correct (of course, there is little empirical content to this particular thesis, anyway). 2012 was not an isolated event, by the way.”
    Wow is that far off?
    See “Republicans may be many things, but we are not moochers” (http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2012/11/republicans-may-be-many-things-but-we_14.html). Quote (but read it all)
    “A bizarre meme is spreading among the left that Republican voters disproportionally life off welfare. I guess the psychological appeal of this myth is that it makes Republicans out to be both losers and hypocrites at the same time. As a bonus, the myth allows Democrats to demand more tax payers dollars for themselves without feeling guilty about it.
    Perhaps this notion appears plausible because of geographic voting patters. Poor states vote for Republicans while rich states vote Democrats. We know however from Gelman’s Paradox that this is misleading. States don’t vote, individuals do. Though poorer states vote Republican, within states the pattern is the opposite: poorer individuals vote Democrat. It is low-income Democrat voters who are dragging down the Red State average, while high-income Republicans in Blue States raise their average.”

  19. Anonymous

    Who said the following? A right-wing Republican?

    “I’m trying to remember if we’ve had this conversation. What I’ve said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it — it may not be 24-hour days. And that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and that I think is a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part. You know, my belief is that the story the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live, that that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible? That, you know, I don’t presume to know.”

    Obviously no one any self-respecting Asian would vote for.

    Answer – Barrack Obama

  20. The Engineer

    It’s almost comical how some almost irrelevant issues at the national level can drive voting patterns.
    Having run for local office in 2012, as a Republican, running against an opponent who had his office raided by the FBI over the summer, and yet still getting trounced because of people coming out to vote for Obama and other non-issues at the local level (I’m in Indiana, and I got blowback from the Mourdock rape comment), I really have to fear for Democracy in America.
    Most people have no f-ing clue who they are voting for in most races. They take their cue from national news, which is irrelevant in local races. I think Menzie’s post is further evidence of this.
    I look forward to Asian-American having more of their income confiscated from them by Democrats and having their children further discriminated against in the educational system vis-a-vis reverse affirmative action. You get what you vote for, folks.

  21. Steven Kopits

    The consensus seems to be moving to taking the fiscal cliff:
    Here’s Krauthammer:
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/29/krauthammer_on_fiscal_cliff_negotiations_republicans_ought_to_simply_walk_away.html
    Here’s Howard Dean:
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/29/howard_dean_going_off_fiscal_cliff_the_best_deal_progressive_democrats_are_going_to_get.html
    I think it’s one thing to be socially liberal. I think it’s another to pony up the money pay for it. Asians in California, as we go off the fiscal cliff, will see their tax rates rise by 6-8% (Fed + state increases of 1-2%), to 52% before real estate and other taxes.
    In our household, my wife voted for Obama. “Well done,” I said, “but your political philosophy and your children’s interests are not aligned. You have just voted to remove your daughter from her private school.” “I didn’t vote for that!” she countered. To which I replied that elections have consequences, and she’s a fool if she thinks the government can borrow 40% of revenues and close the gap with minor adjustments. She likes to think we’re takers, but alas, we are makers–we’re the ones who ultimately pay for all this.
    My brother also supported Obama because “Romney has no core.” Now he’ll be able to write a check for $30,000 to the IRS for Obama’s core values.
    I would guess there are many other well-educated liberals–including Asians–who will face a similar reality check. We will revisit this topic next election and see how they feel about Democrats then.
    Last night, I discussed school changes with my daughter–who is class president and top of her class academically. It was a particularly painful discussion for me. But we’re not alone in this boat. For many with good incomes and school age children, really the only place one can materially economize–save more than $1,000 per month–is on private education. So with these tax increases, private schools are going to be among the hardest hit sectors of the economy.
    I also think the Republicans should stand tough on the debt ceiling here. Having allowed through a whopping tax increase, the Republicans should simply hold the line and say that i) they have approved a historically large tax increase; ii) debt is high enough, and iii) if Obama wants these expensive programs, he should propose additional tax increases to cover them: Republicans will not borrow money from China to pay for universal healthcare coverage. It’s pay-as-you-go.
    Then we’ll see what Asians are really willing to support in terms of government expenditure.

  22. tj

    OH! THE HYPOCRISY!!
    The Obama administration on Wednesday announced its opposition to an immigration bill by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) that is designed to boost the number of visas for foreign-born graduates with advanced technical degrees from U.S. universities, saying it fails to fulfill the President’s long-term goal of achieving comprehensive immigration reform.
    http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/269985-obama-administration-comes-out-against-stem-bill
    Obama will veto this bill to increase visa’s for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math ) foreign born students educated in the U.S.
    The reason? “The administration does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the President’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform.”
    On the other hand…
    Increasing taxes on the “rich” while ignoring entitlement reform seems like a pretty narrowly tailored proposal to solve our fiscal problems.
    Obama tax increase $1.6T
    Spending cuts $0.4T (to come “later”, haha!)
    When the accrued expenses of the government’s entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit.
    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-16-trillion-only-hints-040600503.html

  23. Menzie Chinn

    Jack: Thank you for the comment. On this point, you are preaching to the choir. My view is close to that of one of the commenters: making the argument so that things “add up” using math is often informative.

    Rick Stryker: There once was a time when some conservatives opposed government intervention in the private lives of individuals.

    On assumptions of turnout — that is part of the statistical analysis process, isn’t it. If one assumes something contrary to trend, that seems like kind of ignoring data. But that is just me (and all the stats and econometrics courses I took — but who needs that!).

    On the comparative statements of Senator Rubio and President Obama, the former merely threw up his hands and said I don’t know; the latter allowed that a Biblical day could be hundreds of millions of years. I see a difference.

    The Engineer: Might I conjecture that they didn’t vote for you because you have such disdain for your fellow American, viz. “Most people have no f-ing clue who they are voting for in most races. They take their cue from national news, which is irrelevant in local races. I think Menzie’s post is further evidence of this.”

  24. jonathan

    Steven, I see no reason why the GOP would make a deal. Why? Because GOP House members will then likely face a primary challenge in which the main point will be “X voted to raise taxes.” So whatever one thinks about the overall importance to the nation, individual self-interest says, “Don’t make a deal now because that means you are voting to raise taxes.”
    The incentives change when the changes happen. Then a House member can vote to lower taxes. Maybe that vote doesn’t lower taxes on everyone but at least it is a vote to lower taxes. That is much easier to explain in a primary.
    So I think all that’s happening now is noise. I’m also sure the administration knows this, that they understand how the incentives work for the GOP. So I don’t expect any deal until self-interest aligns with making a deal.

  25. Joe

    Didn’t Romney say he was going to go after the Chinese for currency manipulation? That may have put off a few Asians. First generation immigrants who set up small businesses may have favored the low tax party, but since the next generation has moved into the job market due to higher educational achievements, you’d expect a predilection towards liberalism. That may account for some of it. I’m guessing here, but don’t the majority of Asians live in liberal coastal areas anyway, where racial tolerance is de rigueur.

  26. Bearish

    This is an interesting article about how the Republican Party lost the Muslim community that used to vote reliably Republican:
    http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/2012/11/the-gop-and-me.html
    And the lesson isn’t lost on other immigrant groups either. Muslim Americans went from being respectable citizens and neighbors to pariahs and a target of persecution overnight. And they won’t forget that the Republicans led the charge.

  27. Steven Kopits

    You may be right, Jonathan.
    And if the Republicans lose their nerve here, then the makers are truly and finally screwed in this country.

  28. Joseph

    Steven Kopits, given your whining, I wonder how you survived the national nightmare of peace, prosperity and budget surpluses in the 90s when we had the same tax rates. The last decade has had the lowest taxes in 70 years and the worst economy since the great depression. How’s that working out for you?

  29. 2slugbaits

    Steven Kopits I believe you owe your wife and your daughter an apology. Your math is simply wrong. Since you are concerned about the cost of private school education, I’m assuming that you are probably comfortably in the upper middle or lower upper income class. You are definitely not in the plutocrat economic class. As several economists have pointed out, the Romney plan primarily impacted those in the 80th to 99.9th percentile. The Romney tax plan was a boon to those in the top 0.1 percentile, but not the rest in the top quintile. Why? Because the Romney plan counted on eliminating the kinds of deductions that strongly benefit those in the top quintile, but not quite in the top 0.1 percent (i.e., the true plutocrats). A lot of folks in the top quintile did not actually understand their own economic interests. You’re guilty of not having sufficient class consciousness. You are not a plutocrat; you are upper income. And in the Romney plan there is a HUGE difference between being a plutocrat versus being merely comfortably well off. In short, you were snookered by Team Romney.
    The Obama plan will actually keep taxes where they are for those making less than $400K. The top marginal rate goes up for any income beyond $250K; however, the Bush tax cuts are preserved for every dollar under $250K. As a result, you would have to make more than about $400K to come out worse under the Obama plan. And remember, that’s adjusted gross income. And since you’re worried about the costs of private schooling, keep in mind that tuition tax credits are preserved under the Obama plan but were eliminated under Romney’s plan.
    Now go apologize to your wife and daughter and promise to never vote Republican again. Go and sin no more.

  30. Joseph

    Wait a minute. Breaking news. House Republicans bent to outside pressure and appointed a token female to head the Committee on Administration — essentially the Housekeeping Committee. Well, I guess you could say that’s progress.

  31. dilbert dogbert

    “Wait a minute. Breaking news. House Republicans bent to outside pressure and appointed a token female to head the Committee on Administration — essentially the Housekeeping Committee. Well, I guess you could say that’s progress. ”
    Wonder if she will follow Newt’s program and do the sweeping and mopping up herself. Tis woman’s work ya know.

  32. The Engineer

    No Menzie, you can’t. I happened to have run for a rather technical position, County Surveyor, where my retrograde 😉 views were not at issue.
    I think your blog post is a textbook example of “mood affiliation bias” (love the pics of the white male GOP leaders). You so much know the age of the earth as Marco Rubio, the difference is that you mood affiliate with “scientists”, whom you then affiliate with the Democrat party.
    I think that puts you on the same level as most voters in my race, who had absolutely no clue who they were voting for down the ticket, they just came out to vote for Obama.

  33. Frank Youell

    The racial quota mindset at work here is appalling, disturbing, and (these days) predictable. Asians should vote for the Democratic party because the Republicans haven’t imposed appropriate racial and sexual quotas on their committee chairs.
    Racism anyone? Exploitative identity politics?
    Of course, blatant and explicit discrimination against Asians isn’t a problem when good liberals do it. Ron Unz just published a long article (The Myth of American Meritocracy – http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/) showing a stunning level of anti-Asian bias in elite university admissions.
    Anyone upset by it? Of course, Democratic bigots are saints. Republicans are devils.

  34. Walt French

    Lotta unhappy conservatives here, and rightfully so. They’ve been smeared — but not by liberals, by the platform writers of the Republican party.
    The real issue is that the Republican party ran away from the country’s founding principles, to pander to theocrats, racists and on-the-dole fatcats who engineer zero or near-zero percent tax rates as their fair share of supporting the country that makes their ultrawealth possible.
    Romney could have won an election about economics, about opportunity for all, about even likability. Those themes were important in all the Republican victories at least back to Nixon. He could’ve had a fair chance if the election were about a strong America, despite Obama’s takedown of Osama bin Laden.
    Instead, he made the fatal mistake of pandering to the wingnuts who disproportionately vote in Republican primaries, and let the contest be about challenging the integrity of women who get raped; about savaging Ben Franklin’s goal of high-quality education for all; about making America a theocracy; about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness being prohibited to gays. Not a bedrock American principle in that list. Thank God the Southern Strategy is finally exposed for the outdated disgrace that it always has been.

  35. Frank Youell

    The racial quota mindset at work here is appalling, disturbing, and (these days) predictable. Asians should vote for the Democratic party because the Republicans haven’t imposed appropriate racial and sexual quotas on their committee chairs.
    Racism anyone? Exploitative identity politics?
    Of course, blatant and explicit discrimination against Asians isn’t a problem when good liberals do it. Ron Unz just published a long article (The Myth of American Meritocracy – http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/) showing a stunning level of anti-Asian bias in elite university admissions.
    Anyone upset by it? Of course, Democratic bigots are saints. Republicans are devils.

  36. Rick Stryker

    Menzie,
    I think you need to read the Obama quote more carefully. You said that the difference is that Rubio said that he didn’t know what was true but that Obama allowed for the possibility that a Biblical day could be much longer than one day. But there answers are really the same. Obama said
    “I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part.” But if that’s a legitimate debate then Obama is allowing for the possibility that the earth was really created in 6 days.
    Obama also said:
    “Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don’t presume to know.”
    Obama doesn’t know the answer, just as Rubio said he doesn’t. No difference.

  37. Irineu de Carvalho Filho

    I guess a lot of the rejection of the Republican party by so called minorities has to do with their positioning as the nativist party.
    Of course, there are a lot of other factors. But that factor I mentioned is very important.

  38. Darren

    The reason Asian-Americans vote Democrat is not what Menzie claims (even if he wishes it were so).
    In terms of tolerance for gays, pre-marital sex, etc., most Asians are more conservative than even the staunchest Bible-thumper in South Carolina. The scariest thing you can tell an Asian is that their child was seen kissing someone of the same gender.
    So no, they are not ‘liberal’ on social matters. They also want low taxes, and are pro-business (most have no aspiration for public-sector moocher careers).
    The reason they vote Democrat is this :
    They arrive in this country as blank slates, and vote for whoever is the loudest. That is the left.
    Also, if the country they come from is poorer, like China or India, that means they come from poor governance. Having never experienced good government, they are uninformed customers of government. They assume a 50% tax rate is what is required to keep the gutters covered, electricity reliable, and mosquitos at bay.
    They have no idea that 80% of government spending is payments to individuals, and is politically driven.
    Asians assume that their taxes are all spent wisely, and that the quality of services is proportional to the taxes collected.
    That said, the few Asians who are knowledgeable about politics are Republicans. The only two Indians in high office are Governors, that two of Deep South states, and Republicans.
    No Asian will attain high office as a Democrat, mainly because Democrat politics is about identity pandering rather than ideas. Hence, Asians are too few in number to become a vote bank, and will not rise in the Dem party the way a black or Hispanic politician would.
    The only Asians who will ever rise to high elected office are going to be Republicans, for this reason of merit vs. vote bank value. The operative word is ELECTED office.

  39. Sam

    Darren:
    So you’re basically saying that Asians are dumb (despite being the most educated racial group in America) and can’t think beyond political advertising? Sounds like you have some MAJOR beef with the democrats, and you just want to use Asian voters as a token to scream on your soapbox.
    And oh, enough with the generalizations already. Geez….

  40. reason

    The question asked of Rubio and the President were QUITE different questions by the way. The President was NOT asked how long the earth has existed.

  41. Morgan

    I love how Democrats try to spin Obama’s answer (“It was a different question!” “You had to look in Obama’s eyes!”). The reality is that most politicians will give similar answers. However, the MSM narrative is that the GOP is “anti-science” and it shapes GOP politicians’ responses to fit that, while censoring/distorting the Dems’ responses to shift them away from that. This is a disturbingly effective tactic.

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