Obama's Poor Showing among Asian and Latino voters

(cross-posted at rachelstavern.com)

I was a passive onlooker in the primary fight until about three weeks ago, when I took the plunge into camp Obama.

I think Obama did very well last night, and he won my home state of Georgia, but I'm really disappointed that Latino voters were voting against him 2-to-1, and Asians 3-to-1. This has been the cause of much gnashing of teeth over at AsianAmericansforObama. Before Super Tuesday, we were reading predictions that Obama would win the Asian-American vote in California. Looks like that poll was completely wrong.

There are two possible factors people are throwing around: racism and conservatism. I don't want to discount the fact some Latinos and some Asians are racist against black people. No two racial or ethnic groups in this country have a perfect history of harmony with each other. Indirect racism could be even more powerful. A Latino or Asian voter might have nagging doubts as to whether the majority of voters -- white people -- will really support a black person in the general election. Simplistic versions of the racism argument -- "Latinos don't vote for black candidates" -- have already been taken apart and debunked at rachelstavern.com and at numerous other places, so I'm not even going to bother talking about them.

My theory is that the main factor is not racism at all, but conservatism. I don't mean conservative ideology, I mean conservative outlook. Many of these voters are newer Americans, or they have ties to communities where others are newer Americans. The mindset is often "don't rock the boat". I know some people with resident cards who are nervous about going to quite peaceful political demonstrations... "just in case". Another example: an ex-roommate of mine, a foreign student, once gave a large donation of money to the Fraternal Order of the Police. Since he didn't have any money at all to spare, we asked him why on earth he did that... it was simply because he got a phone call from an FOP telemarketer. "In my country, when the police ask for money, you give it to them."

This kind of anxiety can continue over into citizenship and be imparted to the next generation. It feeds into conservatism and works against lesser-known transformational candidates like Barack Obama. Clinton has name recognition. She has strong connections to the current political establishment. From this point of view, she's the safer candidate.

Other polls show a strong generational divide: younger for Obama, older for Clinton. This definitely cuts across Latinos and Asians as well. I was shocked by the Asian-American results because all the Asian-American blogs I read are pro-Obama. The really big dog in the pack -- Angry Asian Man -- came out as an Obama supporter! But these bloggers tend to be younger, obviously.

Latino and Asian Obama supporters are going to work twice as hard now. It's possible that with greater name recognition we can reverse the trend.

One test of my theory is how well Obama does among Asian voters in Hawaii. With all his Hawaiian family ties, he should do very well.

Edited to add: Here is a much more sophisticated analysis of the same issue, just posted by Jeff Chang at HuffPo. And another by Kai at Zuky.net.