In response to Sen. Obama's steadfast refusal to address the grievance faced by Asian Ams, and given that the presidential primary season will begin in 7 days, the Board of 80-20 has voted unanimously to defeat Sen. Obama's candidacy in the Democratic primary unless he replies to OUR questionnaire with all yeses.
and continues:
Sen. Obama gave almost farcical reasons why he would not reply to OUR questionnaire. The reasons given are
1) "He is black." Hence he has to be extra careful in matters dealing with the minorities to avoid the suspicion of the majority. So is Sen. Obama hoping to build his presidency on the backs of Asian Ams suffering unequal opportunity in workplaces?! How arrogant!
First of all, the Obama campaign almost certainly did not reply with: "He is black." Simply making such a ludicrous claim is pretty strange. The official Obama statement on the questionnaire is here.
After listing a few other outrageous things the Obama campaign never said, Woo disintegrates into anti-Obama drivel (Note, I did not bold or change the font color in any of these quotations- it is purely the prose of Mr. S.B. Woo):
Sen. Obama trivializes his "inexperience" by pointing to our youngest President, John F. Kennedy. How wrong Obama is. Kennedy served in the House and Senate for 14 years, from1946 to 1960, before being elected the President. Obama has only 3 years' experience in national politics -- one quarter the national experience of our youngest President -- JFK.
Unfortunately, judging from the 80-20 website, Woo has a history of eccentricity and outlandish statements. This chart claims that through 80-20's endorsement and without any evidence that Asian American voter turnout increased for Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004 respectively. In an e-mail to fellow group members after Hillary Clinton agreed to 80-20's demands, Woo remarked: "Asian style politics abandoned: Don't raise money for politicians like ignorant slobs" and that 80-20 would now raise funds for Clinton. Under the achievements section of the site, Woo gives an example of his activism:
Conflict:"... get the TV ad off the air immediately or face 80-20's wrath." -- message left by S. B. Woo for Jim Nicholson, Chair, Republican National Committee.
Other parts of the website claim credit for single handily defeating Abercrombie and Fitch for racist t-shirts (without mentioning the work of students and other activist groups) and the tone of the e-mail is pretty much consistent everywhere:
You are the David who will beat Goliath. The email addresses you'll
send to AsianAmericanUnity@80-20.us will be the slingshot. The
presidential candidates presidential candidates who ignore Asian Ams
concerns are the Goliaths. Our children's destiny brightens when you
join the rank of DAVID. DO IT NOW please.
The 80-20 letter is not the only source of misinformation about Obama spreading via e-mail. Among the myth-promoting e-mails floating around the Internet about Obama, most have made erroneous claims about his faith (that he is a 'secret' Muslim or an atheist) or noted that his middle name is Hussein (which is correct, however Obama has not kept his name a secret, as the e-mail contends). The origin of most these e-mails are almost impossible to trace and they have been spotted on computers all over the country going back several years. Clinton staffers were recently let go in Iowa after being caught forwarding one of these Obama e-mails along.
Has 80-20 and S.B Woo lost it? Woo sings Clinton's praises throughout the blog. Is this latest e-mail campaign (80-20 says it has a list of over 700,000 and I have reports of this e-mail being sent along Maryland area list servs) a lame attempt to hurt Obama and help Clinton? Any misinformation is dangerous near election time, even stuff like the rantings of someone like Woo to his list servs.