There is an increase in Asian-American political savvy and desire to serve our community. How come? The reason is the recent exposure of the foolishness of our old practices in politics!

Bad Money Exposed By Recent News

(1) Selfish Asian Americans who have raised money for politicians for their personal vanity, or commercial interests or political careers have been repeatedly exposed as suckers who sucked our community's money and in turn got sucked by politicians. Indeed, many of them, Norman Hsu and John Huang to name two, got in deep trouble with the law.

(2) Even well-intentioned but politically naive Asian-American fundraisers have also been exposed as suckers. A politician's apparent pro-immigrant stands can change over night. When the fundraisers' over-zealousness in raising money got exposed, politicians publicly embarrass them.

(3) Executive Order 11246 that has been enforced for all Americans is not enforced for Asian Americans by an Asian-American Labor Secretary. Visit
http://www.80-20initiative.net/news/preselect2008.asp Click on A. 3.

In other words, our hard-earned money when donated in a bad way to politicians got us nothing but trouble. That is, bad publicity and discrimination! We must STOP donating in such foolish fashions. When BAD MONEY dries up, good money will come in.

What is Good money?

When a fundraiser (bundler) asks you to donate to a politician, ask yourself and/or the fundraiser four questions.

a) What deeds has this veteran politician done to help our community?
    Did he/she help win equal opportunity and/or adopt enlightened immigration policy? If no, save your money. Only deeds deserve our donations.

b) Does this fundraiser know American politics? If no, save your money.

c) Will this bundler likely use his/her political connections to help our community? If no, save your money.

d) If a novice politician is raising money, will he/she likely share our community's concerns? Sharing our concerns, not ethnicity, is what counts.

"GOOD MONEY" is money donated after passing those four checks. Such money will bring our community immense political clout.

A Changing Wind

Asian-American elected officials used to endorse presidential candidates without asking what the presidential candidates would do for our community if elected. All that has changed this year!

The following co-chairs of "Asian Pacific-Islander Americans for Hillary" have asked Sen. Clinton to reply with "6 yeses" to 80-20's questionnaire to her campaign, i.e., for her to give an iron-clad commitment to our dire needs. These elected officials are our heroes and heroines. Their names are:

  Judy Chu, member of California’s State Board of Equalization,
  Mike Eng, California State Assemblymen,
  John Liu, City Councilman of New York City,
  Gary Locke, Former Governor of Washington,
  Fiona Ma, Majority Whip of the California State Assembly,
  Henry Manayan, Former Mayor of Miltpitas, California,
  Doris Mastui, Congresswoman and National Chair of AAPIs for Hillary Clinton,
  Otto Lee, Mayor of Sunnyville, California, and
  Ellen Young, City Councilwoman of New York City.

Will Senator Clinton, who wanted these co-chairs to endorse her, share these co-chair's concerns? We don't know yet. The 80-20 EF shall keep you posted. We are certain that these officials will know what to do, if Senator Hillary does NOT listen to them.

Comments are welcome at http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/posterboard.html .

Thank you.

Respectfully,
S. B. Woo
President
80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc. (EF) ?

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT: 80-20 EF continues to receive generous donations:
Dr. Stephen Ko $1,000, Lawrence and Mary Tom $750
Larry & Sophia Ho $500, Tom & Laura Hsu $500
Eric Chengfen Liu $500, Betty & Brian Ng $250 and
Xinhai and Scott Chai with matching gifts from Adobe and Boeing of $100.00 each.