FrankTrollman wrote:Especially because Filipinos voted for Bush in 2004 and voted 58% for Obama in 2008. They are swing votes, who are traditionally people wooed by both parties (look at all the crazy that the Cubanos get passed from Florida despite their low total numbers).
People who are easily swayed to vote for one party or the other are not the kind of group that traditionally gets forgotten about by self serving politicians of any stripe. It's just not an argument that makes sense.
-Username17
They're not a swing vote Frank.
A swing vote is a group of voters
easily swayed to one side or another.
Asians are a
diffused voting block. Meaning that each Asian voter is likely to look for
different things, and would thus most likely vote on specific issues and candidates because the idea of sticking to one particular set of ideologies isn't appealing (as demonstrated by how there are more independent and non-partisan Asian-Americans than ones registered in either party).
For Filipino-Americans alone for instance, the wiki article even goes as far to say that
male Filipnos tend to vote Democrat more, while females vote Republican. Plus a divide between first generation people and second generation people.
That's not an easy swing vote. That's a demographic nightmare for any politician wanting to "own" the Filipino-American vote. You have to say one thing to the women, and another to men? You have to say one thing to the Japanese, but another to the Vietnamese?
It thus actually makes them
less attractive to entice. Because unlike other voting blocks who can be easily satisfied with a few platitude positions (i.e. You should be pro-Life to make yourself attractive to the extreme right), you actually have to work to answer a
lot of different concerns and be a real bipartisan candidate (like Obama).
In fact...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_American
The degree of assimilation has gained the Filipino American, along with other Asian groups, the label of "Invisible Minority."[48][49]
Some studies have shown that Filipino-Americans (and Asian-Americans) have so successfully assimilated into American culture that it's almost impossible to tell them apart from the mainstream US middle class population.
Now, that's totally fine for national issues that affect the middle class, because how the middle class will vote form some issues is more or less how Asian-Americans will vote for it too.
But for speciality issues, like the veteran's benefits, it gets bogged down very quickly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_V ... irness_Act
This bill for instance had been in the works since
1993 and nobody seems to want to pass it, making the Philippines the only country not to receive military benefits from the US in World War 2. Particularly the guys who survived the Bataan Death March. If we were such a swing vote, why hasn't one party or another staked claim to it and gotten it passed?
It took screwing around with the stimulus bill (by a Democrat and a Republican working together because they also think is an incredibly dumb shit situation) to get Filipino veterans any money at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_Act_of_1946
So no, calling Filipino-Americans a swing vote is ignorant and flat-out wrong.
Diffused is not the same as
easily swayed, ViTM got it right. We should just keep yelling at you bastards for being a bunch of hypocrites until the immigration laws are revised to something more sane and illegal immigrants (yes, even our own) are treated as they should be.
You're honestly falling into the trap of simplistic, Fox-News style political analysis where everyone is a Democrat, a Republican, or a swing vote to try and push to one side or another.
