Original post written by Oiyan Poon at Asian Americans for Obama
I'm recovering from a long day in Orange County yesterday. Driving down there from Los Angeles yesterday with my friend Jennifer, we both commented on how rare we ever spend time in the "orange curtain." It takes something special to get us Angelinos to the OC, but to be honest we were also a bit skeptical about the "APIA Presidential Town Hall," by APIA Vote, because there are 2 important primary elections coming up on Tuesday making this weekend a critical GOTV weekend. So we were pretty sure that none of the candidates would make a personal appearance, but we were looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new people. Plus, there was a "Unity" event scheduled later that evening at a local lounge, to bring together AAPI's supporting Clinton and Obama. Yes folks, we need to unify in time for the November general election... for Obama! That's right, I said it :)
The event exceeded my expectations. It was a hot day, so it was nice to finally get let into the Bren Center. In the lobby there were 3 tables. The Hillary supporters were already there with all their chum - a huge pile of signs for people to wave inside the venue, stickers, and buttons. Next to the table were 2 empty tables - the one in the middle was reserved for McCain, and the 3rd table was for Obama. No one was there set up to table! By now, Jennifer and I had reunited with grassroots campaign buddies Emily and Michelle. I called Van from the campaign to see if he was bringing stuff and to check to see where he was. He was, in true So Cal fashion, stuck in traffic, but said he only had some AAPI for Obama literature. So in the spirit of grassroots campaigning, Jennifer took charge and said, "Let's go. We're at the table!" Michelle came over and told us she still had some stuff from February in her trunk. Next thing you knew, we had some campaign signs for the front of the table, flyers, and a handful of stickers... and most importantly sign up sheets for new volunteers! Our friend Steve showed up next and had a big home made "Obama '08" banner and about 15-20 HOPE posters. Van showed up with some more AAPI for Obama flyers in different languages, and explained that everything else had been sent on to Oregon and Kentucky. In the end we looked alright, and we had tons of people come over to our table signing up to help with the general campaign! Even KABA MODERN from MTV's America's Best Dance Crew came by, and took a picture with Steve's banner.
Overall, there was definitely good energy in the Bren Center.
Senator Clinton was up first, introduced by CA State Controller John Chiang. From Sepia Mutiny's live blogging:
Only a small group of ten cheered for HRC when Chiang mentioned her name right now. Who would have figured with the way CA APIA’s voted overwhelmingly for Clinton in our Feb primaries.
Then up on the big screen was Senator Clinton's pre-recorded speech.
Unfortunately Senator Obama couldn't make it in person either, but I was excited that he was going to be on the phone from Oregon with us, to answer questions in an interactive way, spending a lot more time with us at the event than Senator Clinton did via pre-recorded message. Congressman Xavier Becerra (I love him!) was there with Assemblymember/Chair of the AAPI Legislative Caucus Ted Lieu to introduce Senator Obama. The crowd definitely got excited at this point. Members of the audience had a chance to ask him their questions and the Senator was witty and intelligent in his answers. I think he definitely won over a lot of people. People were definitely excited to get to have dialogue with Senator Obama.
I mean it's hard to get excited about a pre-recorded video message, but to me it's kind of in line with the top down nature of the Clinton campaign. Even though Senator Obama couldn't be there physically with us, he was there to DIALOGUE with us about questions from members of our community!
Later talking with a Hillary supporter who realizes it's time to unify around one candidate (BARACK!) we talked about the culturally different aspects of the 2 campaigns. While he wants essentially a hired gun in DC to clean house and to fix things, I want to see sweeping cultural change across the country where people feel engaged and empowered to hold government accountable to democratic principles. Top down change can only have a short term effect. Cultural change for community empowerment is a lasting change that is bigger than the candidate.
What about McCain, you ask? Well, no one ever showed up at their table. Word was that McCain was expected to call in like Senator Obama did, but he never did. Assemblymember Van Tran (R) showed up to talk about McCain. The large majority of people in attendance at that point left the venue. That's right... no one wanted to stick around to even hear about John "I hate Gooks" McCain.
As for the Unity event, it was a lot of fun, and good to see that we can all come together.
For a full recap of the day's event check out the archives of Taz's liveblog of the event on Sepia Mutiny.