Emergent versus insurgent: Jeff Chang on why Clinton won Asian Americans in California

02.06.08 - Posted by AsiansVote

While the 80-20 Initiative claims victory, Keith Kamisuga at AsianAmericansforObama.com writes that Clinton's sweep of Asian American voters in California by 73 to 25 percent "demands some reflection and analysis." Jeff Chang, writing for the Huffington Post, has some of that analysis right here. Here's an excerpt:

The reason Hillary won is because the Latino and Asian American votes remain emergent, not yet insurgent.

Emergent voting blocs respond to leaders in their community. If the candidate wins the leader, she wins her followers. Insurgent voting blocs instead respond to calls for change, and may focus more on single issues or agendas. If a candidate stakes out a good position, she captures the community. Hillary played the politics of emergence.

Early, she locked down important leaders in the Latino and Asian American communities. In Los Angeles, that meant securing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's support, and the predominantly Latino unions that have supported him. She also landed the support of Fabian Nunez and Dolores Huerta. In San Francisco, that meant seizing on Mayor Gavin Newsom's popularity amongst Asian Americans. She also captured a who's who of Asian American elected officials starting with Controller John Chiang and moving on down. Just as important, Hillary's campaign locked up a huge number of the leading Latino and Asian American party operatives--the people who actually deliver the voters.

UPDATE: Jenn at Reappropriate has this comment:

I've been wondering if the "don't rock the boat" assimilationist mentality of older-generation APIAs or recently immigrated APIAs may also have factored; Obama's message of change may not have resonated amongst those APIAs who find an known institution (and supporting that) highly appealing.

I'm not going to discount 80/20, since I'm sure targeting Asian language newspapers had a good impact, although it's not the sole cause. The take-home message there for me is that next time 'round, we absolutely MUST target Asian language media in order to place ads or letters.

I'll just add that we should all remember that it's a big step forward for us to be having this particular discussion. Agonizing about why Asian Americans picked the arguably less progressive Democrat over the arguably more progressive Democrat is far preferable to the conversations of 1992 and 1996 about why Asian Americans were picking Republicans over Democrats.

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02.06.08 | 2008 Presidential Candidates , Candidates & Leaders , Voting Trends