December 12, 2007

A lesson for the GOP: Bush's favorite PM loses own seat due to legal immigrant voters

America's politics don't have any exact analogs in foreign countries, but Australia's politics are probably closest to ours. (For example, my theory of "Affordable Family Formation" has received more positive response from Australians than from any other country.) Australian politics are confusing at first glance, because the Liberals are the more conservative party, while Labour is on the left, but they can provide an early warning system for American politics.

Ex-Prime Minister John Howard, who won four general elections before losing last month, is perhaps the closest foreign leader to an American Republican politician. Now that the ballot counting is finally over, it turns out that not only did Howard get booted out of the Prime Minister's job, but he also got booted out of the Australian parliament entirely, losing his seat largely due to Asian voters.

Australia doesn't have too much of an illegal immigration problem, but it's important to note that in Australia, prosperous East Asian voters have now proven a natural constituency for the left.

How Labor's machine won Asian votes for McKew

Phillip Coorey, Chief Political Correspondent
December 13, 2007

JOHN HOWARD conceded defeat in Bennelong yesterday. But less than a year ago the woman who vanquished him, Maxine McKew, thought her partner, Bob Hogg, was mad for recommending she try to depose the prime minister.

It was the audacity of Hogg's suggestion that horrified McKew. Stanley Melbourne Bruce was the only prime minister to lose his seat, and that was in 1929.

"I said to him: 'Are you insane? People would think that would be the ultimate vanity? Who does she think she is, taking on the prime minister?"' McKew told Margot Saville, whose book The Battle For Bennelong will be launched next week.

… On November 24 McKew ousted Howard from the seat he had held for 33 years.

As the book reveals, it was due largely to a clinical targeting of Bennelong's above-average number of non-English-speaking, foreign-born and predominantly Asian voters. …

Labor headquarters sent into action a "crack team" of "Chinese- and Korean-speaking twentysomethings" to liaise with the Asian communities. Saville told the Herald the operatives were groomed through the Young Labor movement and worked the party's Electrac data system incessantly to target Asian voters with emails and visits.

They later integrated themselves into the largely Asian Maxine Support Group, or MSG. [!]

McKew's campaign office secured a phone number that ended in 888 because many Chinese believe 8 to be a lucky number.

Thousands of how-to-vote guides in Chinese and Korean were printed and delivered, as were testimonials from prominent members of the Asian community.

Rudd's daughter, Jessica, and her new Hong-Kong-born husband, Albert Tse, were used frequently.

In the final week of the campaign they accompanied McKew at a function at the Eastwood Chinese Senior Citizens Club. Tse gave a speech in Cantonese, Jessica Rudd in Mandarin. The Chinese-language newspaper Sing Tao ran the story on its front page.

Rudd's own affinity with China, evidenced by his command of Mandarin, was pivotal, as was Howard's earlier attitude to Pauline Hanson's One Nation and his controversial 1988 comments on Asian immigration.

On the last day of the campaign, Sing Tao's front page carried the story of the race-hate pamphlet scandal in the seat of Lindsay. Next to it was a story mentioning Howard's 1988 comments.

A day later, voters handed Maxine McKew her place in history.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

22 comments:

  1. Howard was a class act. He was unflinching when it came to the National Question in Australia.

    -Vanilla Thunder

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  2. Steve, I think this does not have lessons for US Presidents.

    Howard has been in that seat for 30+ years and has been Prime Minister for 16 years.

    In this case, I think it was a clever piece of electioneering that would probably only work in Australia.

    US Presidents are elected by the electoral college (and indirectly by all of the people in the US, not by one electorate).

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  3. Is there anything more to say? Not really.

    I'm glad, however, that the door to playing racial politics in Australia was opened by the Asians. Now the Liberal Party has no excuse not to walk through in the next elections.

    And what better, more visible example of the dangers of mass immigration could you have than the head of the ruling party getting knocked off because of immigrants. Hopefully the Aussies won't forget this.

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  4. I think Steve is correct here, I'll note that the Huffington Post HERE:

    Should Dems Dump White Men?

    So Dems certainly (read the comments) want to get rid of White Men. Particularly straight white "Christian" men. Again read the comments.

    Of course that goes both ways. As White Men become more excluded from opportunities (the Military recruiting success is more a measure of how most other areas of life are closed to white men) there will be more support for action on that front.

    Are we destined to have racially-based politics, i.e. various ethnically based coalitions? Probably yes.

    Republicans seem (forced by their base) poised to reject most of GWB's open borders nonsense. I expect AA will be another big issue.

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  5. "As White Men become more excluded from opportunities (the Military recruiting success is more a measure of how most other areas of life are closed to white men)"

    You are going to see the rise of a merchant class out of today's troops. Officers and NCOs are starting to accumulate wealth with these tax-free five-figure bonuses to re-up. On top of that, now the Army is now offering financing for former enlistees looking to start businesses. This will coalesce as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan scale down and there will be some interesting political, economic, and sociological effects from it.

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  6. "US Presidents are elected by the electoral college (and indirectly by all of the people in the US, not by one electorate)."

    I don't understand this reasoning. Enough liberal-leaning immigrants in enough states and the state's electoral college votes reflect that majority in that state. I'm not so certain there isn't some sort of conspiracy to transform the white middle class populations throughout the US by flooding each state with third world immigrants who will have to live a marginal existence in the midst of plenty. What an impetus for their citizen children to vote for candidates who will provide an ample social safety network so that this kind of deprivation never happens again.

    Just look at the current obsession with placing refugees in the less populated midwestern states presumbably to provide cheap labor. It will take less time to turn a red state blue in this unfolding scenario that in densely populated states like Texas and Florida.

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  7. the Military recruiting success is more a measure of how most other areas of life are closed to white men

    "...most other areas of life are closed to white men"?

    I am 100% sympathetic to grievances lodged by those working against the anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-male regime. But the statement above is absurd hyperbole. Very few areas of life in the U.S.A. are actually "closed to white men". Certain campus positions: yes. Certain government bureaucrat positions: yes. Certain positions in minority-dominated enclaves where white people don't want to live anyway: yes. But the phrase "most other areas of life" is a gross generality. That is hysteria.

    I'm not saying the overall gist here is wrong. Just that wild exaggerations do not help.

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  8. In the past Labor has been slightly more conservative on immigration because of its strong relationship with the unions, however, it does appear asian immigrants are now tending towards Labor.

    I suspect the same thing may be happening in New Zealand, but I don't know of any studies to confirm this.

    Certainly the NZ Labour Party won the 2005 election through its multi-cultural city seats, despite losing a good number of provincial, white working class seats where they have traditionally done well.

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  9. it's imporatnt to note the Howard is an open borders multi-culturalist like GW bush.

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  10. This is also like the Bob Dornan case in California

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  11. Obviously, parliamentary systems are different from the American set-up.

    The only thing close to equivalent would be Newt Gingrich or Tom Delay, when they were Speaker, losing their Congressional seats because legal immigrants in Georgia or Texas booted them in favor of a Democrat.

    Consider, for example, New York City -- Giuliani was able to be mayor twice, though even what passes for Republicans in NYC barely were represented on the City Council. The executive and legislative are more distinct in the U.S., at all levels of govt, than Australia.

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  12. Speaking of getting white men out of office, the book on that's been written: How to Get Stupid White Men out of Office

    http://tiny.cc/vvq7C


    Author William Upski Wimsatt (the Upski is his tagger or graffiti name) is the grandson of New Criticism literary critic William K. Wimsatt and son of U of Chicago philosophy professor William Wimsatt.

    That's right, the self-announced leader of the get white men out of office movement is . . . a privileged white man.

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  13. Howard was a class act. He was unflinching when it came to the National Question in Australia.

    No. Howard talked the talk, but when you look at immigration data for Australia you see that their immigration problem is even worse than ours. Illegal immigration may be better (for quite obvious reasons), but legally Australia is taking in immigrants equal to 1% of the population each and every year - twice the rate of legal and illegal immigration to the US.

    US Presidents are elected by the electoral college (and indirectly by all of the people in the US, not by one electorate).

    No, it does have lessons - it has lessons for state legislators, for congressmen, and - yes - for presidents. The Republican Party can't win California anymore, thanks to immigration (over half the state is minority, and 27% is first generation immigrant).

    The GOP hasn't won California since 1988. That's a lot of electoral votes to be off the table. Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas - all are potentially going from solid Republican to up-for-grabs to, possibly, out of contention.

    Are we destined to have racially-based politics, i.e. various ethnically based coalitions? Probably yes.

    Today, everyone can get away with it but whites. I'm not sure that whites will go for overt racial politics anymore, but we will fight wealth redistribution schemes and quotas. If the government starts redistributing too much wealth and demanding racial quotas, then democracy in the USA is doomed. Society can't survive with that - it would impoverish us all.

    Officers and NCOs are starting to accumulate wealth with these tax-free five-figure bonuses to re-up.

    Good. They deserve it.

    On top of that, now the Army is now offering financing for former enlistees looking to start businesses.

    They've been doing that for a long time - since well before 9/11.

    Very few areas of life in the U.S.A. are actually "closed to white men"...Certain positions in minority-dominated enclaves where white people don't want to live anyway: yes.

    But the effect of that is enormous. Minority (hispanic and black) enclaves exist because it isn't safe for whites to live in those areas. If whites do something that make a black/hispanic feel unwelcome in a white neighborhood the government and the media get involved. If a white feels unsafe or unwelcome, it's just considered business as usual. That's why it's so much more expensive to be white and raise a family than to be black and raise one. That's why the income gap isn't really as big as it looks. A black can take that smaller income and buy/rent in a black neighborhood. A white cannot.

    Just look at the current obsession with placing refugees in the less populated midwestern states presumbably to provide cheap labor.

    The midwest antibodies to multiculturalism are going to kick in a lot faster, though. These refugees stand out because minorities are currently so rare. Many of the people living in these states live there because they don't want the "benefits" of diversity. And given that they are often Sudanese or Somalis, they have very, very high crime rates. Somali cab drivers and Target employees have set off huge debates in Minnesota, which may be one reason why Minnesota seems to have gotten a little bit more conservative.

    Think about it - one of the big issues in Iowa this year has been illegal immigration. McCain's gotten roasted for it, and ultimately it's going to deflate Huckabee's rise, once Romney lets out the attack dogs (if those Guatemalan gardeners don't come back to haunt him).

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  14. I have a memory of someone saying that the boundary of Howard's constituency was re-drawn: if so, that might have been a bigger effect.

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  15. According to an article in the Australian:


    Rather, it may reflect the fact that there have been five boundary changes since he first won the seat in 1974. Continuing demographic change has compounded with boundary change to make Bennelong a natural Labor seat.

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  16. Mark: Thank you for the correction on Howard. His talk was inspiring though. He and some of his Cabinet ministers said things about assimilation no US politician has the balls to say.

    Evil Neocon said: "Republicans seem (forced by their base) poised to reject most of GWB's open borders nonsense. I expect AA will be another big issue."

    I know this was a minor part of your post, but I thought it worth mentioning. Proposition 2 on the Michigan ballot in Nov. of '06 to restrict affirmative action passed with a 58% majority. I believe all but 3 counties in the state approved it. I've been telling friends ever since the '06 midterms the GOP should tackle the affirmative action beast head on.

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  17. People were tired of Howard. He was Australia's 2nd longest serving PM.

    But also - what Mark said. Howard was hardly a right winger. Australia has very narrow parameters for debate.

    Mark, regarding the "debate" in the Midwest about illegal immigration, I’m with you, I feel your pain, but dream on. Immigration sanctimony is so entrenched I despair that anything can be done about it except squawk.

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  18. It is of course possible that Australia's journalists are as fond of inflating the electoral power of oriental minorities as our journalists are of inflating that of mexicans.

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  19. That's right, the self-announced leader of the get white men out of office movement is . . . a privileged white man.

    Since Steve decided to censor my previous comment:

    Do some research and you will find that Wimsatt has something unique in common with Noel Ignatiev, Susan Sontag, and Alon Ziv, though I can't quite put my finger on it.

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  20. Take heart brave friends. The struggle hasn't been for nought!

    Wall Street Journal:
    "Stoking the Immigration Fire"
    excerpt:
    "Pro-immigration activists now concede that any attempt to revive a legalization bill is dead for perhaps five years,..."
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119751215813425623.html?mod=

    They didn't quote any of these activists or elaborate any further, but how hard must it have been for these activists to admit this? Heck, before 5 years are over we should have headlines saying "US Births Less Than 50 Percent White". Far more people should wake up from that and from the further Californication of the USA. Hopefully the new converts won't be outnumbered by new pro-immigration voters.

    Seeing this in the "There Shall Be Open Borders" WSJ, I am busy singing "Ding Dong, the Witch is dead! Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!" Yes I know we will have to fight again sooner or later, but we all should savor this moment, especially those who have done the most, such as our host.

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  21. From that WSJ immigration article:

    For the 2008 campaign, illegal immigration is emerging as a driving issue even though only one in nine Americans tells pollsters it is their "priority."

    So because it's not everyone's priority, therefore people who feel likewise must be a minority? That does not follow. If you polled people on their most important issues, probably no less than 15 would get at least 1% of the voters. Some voters have no priority at all. They spend more time watching American Idol.

    But just because someone says "Gun Control" is their priority doesn't mean they don't have a strong opinion on, say, socialized medicine.

    Minorites always drive the debate on any issue. The people at large decide whether or not to follow. In Arizona & California, amongst many other places, the people have decided time and again via referenda that they do, even when the referanda's opponents outspend the proponents 10-to-1.

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  22. More from the WSJ immigration article:

    The "unfairness" argument extends to worries that illegal immigrants, about 75% of whom are Hispanic, use more in public services than they contribute in local taxes.

    The WSJ talks as if this is a debatable assertion? But is this even in doubt?

    Over the years the Wall Street Journal has consistently and forcefully made the assertion that middle- and working-class Americans are nothing more than sucklings on the teets of big government; that it's the rich people who generate all of the value and wealth in this country.

    Now to the very rich and well-skilled they would add the dumbest, least educated, most dependent segment of the workforce - illegal immigrants.

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