Mitt Romney has said that President Obama won reelection by promising his supporters “gifts.”
According to the Washington Post:
In explaining his overwhelming electoral college defeat last week, Romney said Obama followed what he called the old playbook of seeking votes from specific interest groups, especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people, the New York Times said. In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups, he added, according to the paper.
See: Post Article
But this raises a couple of questions for me.
First, why did Asian Americans vote overwhelmingly for Obama?
According to CNN’s post election exit polling, Asian Americans voted for Obama over Romney by a margin of 75% to 26%. See, CNN Exit Polling
If Obama was promising “gifts” to Asian Americans I did not hear it. In fact, to the best of my recollection, few politicians pander to Asian Americans. I wonder how they feel about this? Do they resent not being pandered to, or are they grateful?
But the more important point is if voters only voted for Obama because he essentially bought them off, why did Asian Americans vote so overwhelmingly for him?
Second, why did Jews vote favor Obama by 69%?
After all, Romney attacked Obama for not supporting Israel enough, and promised to be the best friend Israel has ever had (OK, that might be a bit over the top). What did Obama promise the Jews to win their vote?
As far as I can see, nothing.
The fact that Jews and Asian-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama puts the lie to Romney’s claims that Obama only won by buying-off interest groups.
I should also note that some Republican’s reject this idea. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said it was “absolutely wrong.” See Salon article.