Why don't Asians vote Republican?

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Minorities only like the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party panders to them and they believe in affirmative action instead of hiring a person based on their skill.  The Republicans are not very popular with minorities because the Republicans don't pander to their every whim.

True, the only problem is that in supporting that position the Republican Party also panders to a base of voters who would like to use skin color as a reason not to hire someone.  A very large and vociferous portion of the Republican base consists of people who use terms like "real America" when talking about lily white rural communities and question the citizenship of a man whose mother was born in Kansas and whose grandfather served in the US army during WWII. 

So, I don't see why its a mystery that minority voters prefer not to align themselves with a party whose supporters are offended by the very presence of minorities in this country.  Until the Republican Party base becomes more tolerant, minorities will continue to vote with the Democrats.  

Stealing the South from the Democrats turned out to be a brilliant short-term strategy for the GOP when LBJ ended the Democratic alliance with Jim Crow.  Now, its coming back to bite the Republicans in the ass.

Thank you, Padfoot. That's the point I was trying to get across. I didn't mention affirmative action although I personally am opposed to it at all levels and if that makes me a racist then so be it, but I digress. I'm used to be calling a racist after supporting Hillary - the racist accusation doesn't phase me at all.

Obviously, Hispanics have been voting so Democratic lately because of the hard-line conservative anti-immigration rhetoric coming from the Republican Party, and we have threads on here discussing why Asians and Native Americans vote Democratic as well. The gender gap seems to be back as well, as I think women have moved more towards the Democratic Party again. Jews seem to be an increasing stronghold for Democrats, and I doubt Democrats have to worry about losing the gay community to the Republicans as long as their party is driven by the Bible thumping bigots and homophobic rednecks who like to compare homosexuals to pedophiles and bestiality and incest and other vile things.

(Interestingly enough, and I'm ashamed to say it, but bestiality is actually legal in Missouri but same-sex marriage is not. We're a pretty f_cked up state).

I think the GOP elites understand all these problems, it's just most GOP politicians don't. I think they will change in the next decade or so, but it will be slow.

I suppose that depends on who you consider the GOP elite. That is, are the GOP elite those who control the party (in which case, no, they don't understand those problems) or simply some nebulous group of leaders with pragmatic politics (in which case they do but are currently in no position to direct those with actual power in the party)?

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Back to the topic thread....

Don't forget economics as a big part for more recent Asian immigrants. While the stereotype of East Asian immigrants maybe be the Filipino daughter of a doctor who's an honor roll student or the South Vietnamese anticommunist ex-army officer who now owns several convenience stores in Cali, recent immigrant communities of Cambodians, Vietnamese, the Hmong, and even the Chinese have major problems with unemployment, poverty, discrimination, drugs, gang violence and urban ghettoization that rival anything we typically think of in the African-American or Hispanic 'hood'.

It's no surprise these communities currently vote overwhelmingly Democratic for the same reasons as African-Americans and more recent Hispanic immigrants, and are quickly growing in number. Consider the Twin Cities in MN with one of the largest Hmong populations which IIRC, just elected their first Hmong state senator.

Well, Vietnamese vote Republican, but anyway...

(Actually, I don't know if recent Vietnamese immigrants vote Republican. There may be a divide between those who fled Vietnam during/after the war and those who immigrate now.)

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Yes, the same Republicans who put the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

Which was signed by Lyndon Johnson, a Democratic President.  It's widely known that during the 1960s the two parties switched positions on those issues.  The party of Lincoln is long gone.

While Goldwater, running for President as a Republican at the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, vehemently opposed it. Granted, that was for reasons other than racism, but it would have been difficult to be more tone-deaf on the issue.

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How many African American Republicans are serving in Congress? None.

How many Hispanic/Latino Republicans are serving in Congress? Four, I think, and they're Cuban Americans and some have said that they don't really qualify as real Latinos. (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balart brothers, and Mel Martinez).

How many Asian American Republicans are serving in Congress? One (Joseph Cao - and he'll be gone in 2010).

How many Native American Republicans are serving in Congress? None. 

How many women are Republicans are in Congress? 21 (out of 91) in both the House (17/74) and Senate (4/17).

How many Jewish Republicans in Congress are there? One (Eric Cantor).

How many LGBT Republicans in Congress are there? None.

Yeah I wouldn't exactly call the Republicans the party of the minorities but more so the party of old angry white men. Republicans don't necessarily hate minorities (aside from homosexuals); they just, well, how do I put this diplomatically, don't tolerate differences?

Isn't David Dreier gay?

Not openly, which is really what matters. In fact, there might be more closeted Republican members of Congress than gay Democrats. But there are (probably) no closeted Democrats, which is really what matters. (That is, a GOP electorate would not nominate/elect an openly gay person, but a Democratic electorate would.)

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If that were the case, surely Republicans would do much better among Asians and Jews, who  are generally as well or better off than the average non-Jewish white person and certainly do not benefit particularly from "social programs, class warfare, and ... pandering to minority groups."

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From what I've read, Asians used to vote Republican during the 1970s and 80s.  The gap narrowed dramatically under Bill Clinton during the 1990s.  From 2000 on, a clear majority of Asians have been in the Democratic camp.

It was largely anti-Communism. Most ethnic Chinese and Filipinos and almost all ethnic Koreans and Vietnamese voted with the most strident anti-Communist party of the time because they had fled Communism or dreaded Communism in their homelands. Japanese and South Asians whose ancestral homelands had comparatively little experience with Communism didn't so vote. (The Japanese voted much like Jews). After about 1980 the PRC did an effective PR job in ethnic-Chinese communities as the PRC dropped any semblance of an effort to spread its "revolution" abroad and became a big trading partner. Vietnam has done much the same, and the Commie threat in the Philippines petered out after the People Power revolution.

The only expansionist manifestation of Communism in Asia is now North Korea, and Koreans seem to be more Republican than other Asian groups.

Koreans are definitely solidly Democratic (indeed, despite being the only large Asian group with an evangelical Christian "tradition"). The Vietnamese are still Republicans, though. I think Filipinos might be Republican, too; certainly the Philippines was one of the only countries worldwide where Bush was still viewed positively by the end of his Presidency. There is of course also a Christian tradition in the Philippines, although they're mostly Catholic (although that Iglesia ni Cristo thing resembles some of the weirder branches of evangelical Protestantism). There's also a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment in most of the Philippines.