Asian American 80-20 group trying to defeat Obama??

So, my generally apolitical mom sent me an e-mail this morning that she had gotten from her friends about the recent action by the Asian American group 80-20 calling upon their members to "defeat Obama".  Seems that they're upset he didn't respond to their questionnaire.

In response to Sen. Obama's steadfast refusal to address the grievance faced by Asian Ams, and given that the presidential primary season will begin in 7 days, the Board of 80-20 has voted unanimously to defeat Sen. Obama's candidacy in the Democratic primary unless he replies to OUR questionnaire with all yeses. This resolution has been formally transmitted to Sen. Obama.

More after the fold, where it gets more bizarre....

This is the questionnaire they sent out.  Six yes or no questions.  80-20 wanted "Yes" responses to all six questions.

First, based on publicly available government statistics, Asian Americans have the least opportunity to enter management when compared with blacks, Hispanics and women; the slowest rate of progress toward equal employment opportunity in spite of having the highest educational attainment. See a full-page color ad in Washington Post on this matter which contains the complete documentation: http://www.80-20educationalfoundatio... . It has been read into the Congressional Record by Senator Thomas Carper of Delaware.

Only 0.6% of our Level III Federal judges are AsAms, all at the District Court level, while 5% of our nation's population are Asian Americans.

Therefore, we, Asian Pacific Americans, wish to know your answers to the following questions:

(1) If elected, will you direct the Labor Secretary to hold public hearings regarding the validity of the huge amount of statistical data strongly suggesting discriminatory practices against Asian Americans in workplaces today?

(2) If the data were shown valid, will you issue a directive to the Labor Department asking it to focus on enforcing Executive Order 11246 on behalf of Asian Americans, since in the past similar efforts have already been made on behalf of women and other minorities?

(3) Two years after you have issued the directive described in item 2, will you meet with a group of Asian American national organizations, put together by 80-20 and the Labor Department, to review the progress in extending equal opportunity to Asian Americans?

(4) If elected, will you within your first term of office, seek to increase the nomination of qualified Asian Americans to serve as Article III life-tenured federal judges, whenever such vacancies are available until the current dismal situation is significantly remedied?  [To put things in perspective, not meaning to imply quota, presently there are 0.6% Asian Am. Federal judges, while the Asian Am. population is 4.5% and the % of Asian Am legal professionals in laws firms of 100 or large is at least 5.3%.]

(5) If elected, will you seek to nominate, within your first term of office, qualified Asian Americans to serve as Article III Circuit Judges, whenever there are vacancies in those positions, until the current dismal situation is significantly remedied? [To put things in perspective, none of the 179 Article III Circuit judges is an Asian American.]

(6) If elected, will you consider nominating a qualified Asian America to the Supreme Court, when a vacancy occurs?  Two years upon your taking the office, will you meet with a group of Asian American leaders, put together jointly by 80-20 and other Asian American national organizations to review the progress in adding Asian American Federal judges?

(Yeah, yeah, they have some grammatical errors.  Remember, most of these people are first-generation American citizens, and English isn't their first language.  My parents have been here for over 30 years, and still speak with accents, and constantly make grammatical mistakes when speaking and writing.  Oh well.)

So far, Dodd, Biden, Gravel, Edwards, and Clinton have all responded to the questionnaire with all Yeses.  It should be of note that not a SINGLE Republican candidate responded to them.  Fred Thompson's campaign said he had a policy of not responding to questionnaires, at which point 80-20 called upon its members to "Forget Fred Thompson".

So like it or not, after being rebuffed by the Obama campaign, 80-20 has issued a call to action to "defeat Obama".  But look at the reasons they're giving.  Some of these don't pass the smell test.

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, from 1946 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.

Seriously??  An Obama staffer actually wrote "He is black" as justification for why Obama wouldn't answer those six simple questions?  Um... something's lacking here in credibility, and it ain't coming from the Obama camp.  Right now, all we have is S.B. Woo's word that the e-mail correspondence was like that.  Why not post the full e-mail he received, instead of selective quoting?  Woo's no novice at the political game either; he was Lieutenant Governor of Delaware from 1985-1989.  He should know better than this.

Some of those other "reasons" given are so incoherent, I don't even know how to begin to respond to them.  Maybe if I get myself drunk first....  So color me skeptical as to the claims I've seen from this group.  Still, it'd be nice if someone from the Obama campaign would issue some kind of release to clarify just what happened between the two groups, as 80-20 seems unwilling to disclose the actual e-mails that were sent.

Anyway, the goal of 80-20 seems to be admirable, getting Asians to care about the political process and make their voices heard, given that we make up only about 6% of the U.S. population.  And ideologically speaking, Asians range all over the place, from the ultra-conservative to the ultra-liberal.  And that seems to hold among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans, and all the other Asian Americans too.  It's nothing like blacks, who are something like 90% Democrats.  So I can see the desire for Asian Americans to make their voices heard.  I mean, how many diaries have we seen over the past year about the GOP losing the Hispanic vote?  Now contrast that to the number of diaries on the "Asian vote".  Ask about it, and the response you'd usually get (heck, even I would say it) is "What Asian vote?"

The larger question this episode raises is what should be the role of these "special interest" groups that represent minorities in America.  By demanding that the candidates respond to such a questionnaire, isn't that forcing the candidates to pander to them?  Is that good or bad?  Because on one hand, it feels like forced pandering.  But on the other hand, the discrimination against Asian Americans in this country is real.  (And yes, there's discrimination against blacks and Hispanics too.  But it seems that Asians are sometimes forgotten about in the scheme of things.)  Heck, even growing up here in Southern California, I had some asshole tell me back in 6th grade how he was going to "kick your ch*nk ass all the way back to China".  Which was ironic, considering I was born here and have never even left the continent of North America.

Anyway, I bet most of you reading this who haven't met me in person didn't even know I was an Asian American, LOL.  At Yearly Kos, when Baratunde Thurston joked on stage on that first night about where all the black bloggers were, I joked at my table wondering where all "my Asian brothas" were at.  :-)