Asian American Conservatives Endorse Obama

If you're like me, you have older, conservative family members who might take some convincing to vote for Senator Obama this coming Tuesday. Sometimes the best strategy to get them to consider voting for Obama isn't direct confrontation - maybe it's just pointing them to the educated opinions of people like themselves, who make convincing arguments that supporting Senator Obama's candidacy is the best choice.

The first, Francis Fukuyama, is a Japanese-American philosopher, political economist and writer. I remember reading a lot of his stuff as a undergrad in my polisci classes. Check out what he writes for the American Conservative right here.

A short excerpt:

I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.

.:.

Another endorsement, by Dr. Samuel Lin, a Chinese American (and SPU alumni!), who served as Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health under two Republican presidents (Reagan and George H.W. Bush) also endorses Senator Obama for president right here.

A excerpt of what he writes:

As a longtime Asian American Republican, it is after careful deliberation that I have made my decision to support Senator Barack Obama for President.

It was not easy to separate from my party's nominee for president. Nor is it an easy decision for me, as I have had the great honor of serving in appointed senior positions under two Republican presidents: Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. But I have concluded that it is necessary for me to openly state my support for the Presidential candidate of the opposing party.

I have become very dissatisfied and distrustful of our reigning national Republican leadership these past eight years because of its continued missteps. Having retired from Federal service after twenty years, I have some idea of what makes a good leader of the Federal Executive Branch. And for a time, beginning at the age of 36, I was the most senior-ranked Asian Pacific American career official in the Executive Branch. But today, my hope for a better America cannot be predicated simply on blind party loyalty to support either a status quo or a very bad parody.

Over the past eight years, very experienced senior persons in this administration have allowed us to fall into an economic morass, partly due to the home mortgage debacle and partly due to the incredulous expenditures for a mistaken war in Iraq. This war, as we finally learned, was declared for causes misled, misdirected and misguided by my Republican leadership who misread Iraq's people and politics and who now have misshackled America with an unnecessary legacy of nearly 5000 lost lives of her next greatest generation. And let's not forget the thousands of young Americans who will now live permanently disabled because of these needless battlefields. So, missteps and mistakes have lead me to conclude, "Enough, I want real change."

I want a president who is truly committed to the good of this country. And that is one who shows this commitment through the selection of his best qualified successor in the event of his demise or incapacitation. I cannot believe one has the welfare of the country in mind by selecting anyone less than this highest standard. Of the two potential successor nominees, "best qualified" goes hands down to Senator Joe Biden.

Rock the vote and spread the word! Take nothing for granted...

(hat tip AngryAsianMan)