It's no small secret that Asian Americans are among the most apathetic demographic when it comes to voting for our elected officials. To say that the priority we as a group assign to politics and the overall electoral process is low would be understating it. With Asian American turnout being the lowest at only 36 percent among 18-29 year old voters in the 2004 elections, we fall far behind white and African American voters. Among one of the key cited factors: disinterest.

Disinterest has its source in many elements, ranging from a simple lack of awareness to outright laziness. Whatever the case may be, we at ADI would like to wipe out your disinterest and do our part to coax you, our Asian American brothers and sisters, out from underneath your haze of apathy by embarking on a new series called Know Your 2008 Presidential Candidates.

There's an old American adage that goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." With our Know Your 2008 Presidential Candidates series, what we are trying to do is to completely take your work out of the equation by not only bringing you to the "water" but bending down ourselves with a ladle to scoop that cool, delicious water to deliver it straight to your sealed lips. To this end, we went out and scoured all the candidates' platforms to bring you what we thought were the top five issues an Asian American would be most interested in (the economy, civil rights, education, immigration, families & children) and profiled each candidate's stance on the particular issue.

We begin this week, in no particular order, with Barack Obama, and in the following non-consecutive issues, we will profile Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

And so, my fellow Asian Americans, there's no need to be afraid--just read on! You might even find yourself, dare we say, interested?


Barack Obama

The Economy

Obama feels that that wages have stagnated while prices for basic necessities such as education and healthcare have skyrocketed. He also feels that the Bush tax cuts have unfairly benefited the upper class by offering them tax cuts 160 times greater than the middle.

His solution for tackling the problem is to...

1) Provide middle-class Americans the tax relief they deserve by offering them tax credits and simplifying the tax filing procedure to the point where they'll be able to be filed in under five minutes.

2) Fight for fair trade policies that support good American jobs and uphold environmental standards and to provide service industry professionals training assistance programs to prevent obsolescence.

3) Encourage job growth through technological innovation by funding research, investing in manufacturing and green technology training programs, boosting the renewable energy sector, deploying broadband internet access to rural communities, and protecting the openness of the Internet.

4) Fight for labor by strengthening the ability for workers to organize unions and protecting striking workers, while also raising the minimum wage.

5) Protect homeownership by reforming bankruptcy laws and cracking down on mortgage fraud and deceitful lending practices, while facilitating greater transparency and responsibility in the mortgage and credit card industry.

6) Ensure a sound work/family balance by expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act and protecting workers with family obligations from employer discrimination; fund high-quality afterschool programs; and encourage flexible work schedules.


Civil Rights

Obama finds that pay inequality amongst genders still persists (for every $1 earned by a man, a woman earns $0.77) and that hate crime is on the rise. He also finds the racist practices ongoing in the criminal justice system and the recent discovery to suppress, intimidate, and mislead minority voters to be reprehensible.

His solution for tackling the problem is to:

1) Strengthen civil rights enforcement by clearing out the politicization which has taken hold in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division as a result of the Bush Administration.

2) Combat employment discrimination by overturning the Supreme Court's ruling that curtails racial minorities' and women's ability to challenge pay discrimination.

3) Expand and strengthen hate crimes legislation and enforcement, while putting an end to racial profiling at both the federal and local level.

4) Legislate harsh penalties to those who engage in voter fraud, as well as to provide accurate and full information to minority voters to avoid being misled.

5) Eliminate sentencing disparities that have unfairly targeted minority offenders and to give first-time non-violent drug offenders a chance to serve their sentence in drug rehabilitation programs.


Education

Obama feels that although the No Child Left Behind program was just in its purpose, it has failed American children due to the shortcomings in design and funding. As a result, American students have been deprived of high-quality teachers and poor academic performance and drop-out rates are running rampant; teacher retention is also a problem; and college costs have become prohibitively expensive (tuition has risen 40 percent in the past five years).

His solution for tackling the problem is to:

1) Provide critical support for early childhood education by focusing on the early care and education of infants by quadrupling funding for Early Head Start/Head Start programs and also providing affordable, high-quality child care to working families.

2) Reform and properly fund No Child Left Behind for K-12 students; make math and science education a national priority by recruiting the best math and science-degreed graduates to the teaching profession; fund and expand high-quality afterschool programs and summer learning opportunities; create outreach programs to encourage more low-income students to apply to college; and hold schools accountable for the effective transitioning of Limited English Proficient students.

3) Recruit, prepare, retain, and reward America's teachers by offering scholarships to future teachers in training, requiring all schools of education to be accredited, providing mentoring programs to new teachers, and increasing pay and rewards in new and innovative ways.

4) Make college affordable for all Americans by providing tax credits and simplifying the application process for financial aid.


Immigration

Obama feels that the explosion in undocumented immigrants is a cause for much concern, as every year a half-million people come into the US illegally or overstay their visas. He also finds problematic the immigration bureaucracy which he feels is broken and overwhelmed, forcing legal immigrants to wait years for applications.

His solution for tackling the problem is to:

1) Create secure borders by increasing personnel, infrastructure and technology along America's borders and ports of entry.

2) Improve our dysfunctional immigration system by increasing the number of legal immigrants.

3) Encourage the existing population of illegal immigrants to come clean by offering them the chance to pay a fine, learn English, and set them along the path to become proper citizens.

4) Remove the incentive for illegal immigrants to enter the country by cracking down on employers who hire them and promote economic development in Mexico to curb the flow of undocumented workers.


Families & Children

Obama feels that too many middle-class families have struggled and worked too hard only to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. Rising healthcare costs, severe lopsidedness in the home and work life balance, rising college tuition costs, and dwindling job security, have all contributed to middle-class insecurity and have further harmed their pursuit and realization of the American Dream.

His solution for tackling the problem is to:

1) Support working families by providing tax credits of $500 to individuals and $1000 per working family which would provide relief to many Asian self-employed small business owners who struggle to pay both the employee and employer portion of the payroll tax; increase the minimum wage; increase paid sick days and expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to include businesses with 25 or more workers.

Obama hopes to encourage states to adopt paid leave; expand flexible work schedules; protect against caregiver discrimination by employers; expand high-quality afterschool programs, early childhood education, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to provide relief to families struggling to afford child care expenses.

Improving the quality of public schools, reforming and properly funding No Child Left Behind, making college more affordable, and providing universal health care and lower health care costs is also something Obama would like to implement.

2) Protect homeownership by creating a universal mortgage credit which would encourage more Americans to own homes; combat mortgage fraud and subprime loans; create a fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosures; mandate accurate loan disclosures by lenders to provide easy-to-understand information to borrowers; close bankruptcy loopholes that prevent bankruptcy courts from modifying an individual's mortgage payments, forcing individuals who seek bankruptcy to continue paying the full amount of their existing mortgage.

3) Strengthen families at home by instituting programs that affirm fatherhood and families; and support parents with young children by providing programs that improve women's prenatal health, reduce childhood injuries, lower unintended pregnancies, increase father involvement and women's employment, and increase children's readiness for school.

4) Strengthen retirement security by requiring employers to enroll their employees into flexible workplace pension programs; and expand retirement savings incentives for working families by creating a generous savings match for low and middle-income Americans, which would encourage individuals into investing for retirement.


For more information, please visit www.barackobama.com