Posted on 12/12/2012 10:07:05 AM PST by MetaThought
In the scramble to make the GOP more diverse, a lot of people are looking at Asian Americans, whom many believe are a natural constituency for the party. I would love it if Asian Americans converted en masse to the Republican party, but the challenge for Republicans is harder than many appreciate.
President Obama did spectacularly well with Asian Americans, garnering nearly three-quarters of their vote. This runs counter to a lot of conventional wisdom on both the left and the right. On average, family income is higher and poverty is lower among Asian Americans than among non-Latino whites. Entrepreneurship, family cohesion, and traditional values all run strong among Asian Americans, and reliance on government runs weak.
And yet Asian Americans — now the fastest-growing minority in America — are rapidly becoming a core constituency of the Democratic party.
I’ve joked for years with my Indian-American relatives and friends that they are the new Jews because their parents bury them in guilt and overeducate them. It turns out it doesn’t end there. Sociologist Milton Himmelfarb observed that “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Well, Indian Americans earn like Jews and . . . vote like Jews.
And maybe for similar reasons. The comparison to Jews is instructive. Perhaps the most common explanation for the GOP’s problem with Asian Americans is the party’s pronounced embrace of Christianity, which turns off many Jews as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
It’s not that people don’t vote for the GOP because of the religious overtones.
It’s that people come away with the impression that they’re not welcome in the GOP because of their religious bent. Then they are welcomed elsewhere and their voting choices follow from that.
A lot of conservatives don’t seem to understand that voting decisions aren’t always rational and can flow from cultural affiliation.
What’s there to respond to? He doesn’t even cite a single person who refuses to vote for the GOP because of some Christian-centric atmosphere. It’s all speculative fearmongering.
“A lot of conservatives don’t seem to understand that voting decisions aren’t always rational and can flow from cultural affiliation.”
So what? That argument cuts both ways. There are plenty of Christians who vote for the GOP for less than rational reasons as well, which is why the party is pandering to them in the first place. It really doesn’t make any electoral sense to drop that and instead pander to a minority who shows no tendency to be loyal to our party’s values or goals.
Is that the same as saying less white?
And less Chrstian and more third world.
You can't ask that people just coming in the door to be loyal to "our values and goals", because that just doesn't make sense. One thing is certain, Democrats will never support our values and goals.
Yes. I have to agree then, because I want to make sure that we bring people together based on ‘political’ ideology that is backed up by our constitutional principles. I am a practicing conservative Catholic.
“Are you saying that it’s impossible to pander to Christians and welcome (not pander to) minorities at the same time?”
No, but that seems to be what Goldberg’s saying. His whole thesis is that pandering to Christians makes some mythical voting bloc too uncomfortable to vote for us, so we should stop pandering to them. If that’s not what he’s saying, then I can’t figure out what his point is.
“You can’t ask that people just coming in the door to be loyal to “our values and goals”, because that just doesn’t make sense.”
Well, what people are we talking about here? Do you know of some demographic that is likely to become aligned with us that is just turned off by mention of God or Jesus? Goldberg can’t specifically name that group, or even find one representative individual to interview, and I can’t recall ever meeting such a person either.
The only people I know who are that turned off by such Christian displays that it might change their political alignment, well, they are all dyed in the wool socialists to begin with. They’re certainly not going to come to our side because of some overtures like this, and I wouldn’t want them on my side anyway.
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