veiled4allah

it's Kerry

Not to my surprise (though I admit to being relieved that they didn't do something stupid), the American Muslim Taskforce has endorsed Kerry for President. The wording of the announcement is interesting, though:

MUSLIM COALITION OFFERS QUALIFIED KERRY ENDORSEMENT AMT-PAC calls for 'protest vote' as guarantee of civil rights WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/21/04 - Following careful consideration of overall U.S. interests, interaction with presidential campaign officials and extensive input from the Islamic community, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections - Political Action Committee (AMT-PAC) is calling on Muslims nationwide to cast a protest vote for Sen. John Kerry. AMT-PAC is an affiliated political action committee of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT). AMT is an umbrella organization representing American Muslim Alliance (AMA), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), Muslim Student Association-National (MSA-N), Project Islamic Hope (PIH), and United Muslims of America (UMA). SEE: http://www.americanmuslimvoter.net/ Muslims are a potential swing-voting bloc in key battleground states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. There are an estimated seven million Muslims in the United States. In its statement, AMT-PAC said: "We believe that our vote is the best guarantee of our civil rights and the best expression of our citizenship. "Unfortunately, the Bush administration has been insensitive to the civil liberties and human rights of American Muslims, Arab-Americans and South Asians. Today, American Muslims are being treated like second-class citizens. "American Muslims are also disappointed with a number of domestic and foreign policies instituted by the Bush administration since the 9/11 terror attacks. "AMT-PAC appreciates the outstanding role of Ralph Nader in highlighting the denial of civil liberties to religious and ethnic minorities. "We acknowledge the considerable outreach to our community by Sen. Kerry's campaign, particularly by his campaign co-chair Sen. Edward Kennedy. We also appreciate the ongoing dialogue with Muslim leaders about problems posed by the USA PATRIOT Act. "While the Kerry campaign has critiqued a number of Bush administration polices, it has so far failed to explicitly affirm support for due process, equal justice and other constitutional norms. We are also disappointed that his campaign has shied away from expressing unambiguous support for principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution that prohibit use of ex post facto laws, secret proceedings and secret evidence. "Because pluralism is based on partial agreements, support for Sen. Kerry is premised on our overall effort to help restore liberty and justice for all. "Mindful of disagreements with Sen. Kerry on some domestic and international issues, including the war in Iraq, we are willing to work with him to help restore due process and equal justice in accordance with the U.S. Constitution. "AMT-PAC therefore urges American Muslim voters and their allies in the struggle for civil rights to focus on the real issues: civil liberties, human rights, international peace and justice, jobs, education, health care, economic development of inner cities, and sound foreign policy. It is vital for the protection of our liberties to vote together, in high numbers, and for a common purpose."

So basically, they went with Kerry as the lesser of two evils. That's how I feel, and that's how a lot of Muslims I know feel (not to mention a lot of non-Muslim progressives). What it comes down to for me is that when I step into the voting booth, I'll take the course of action that I believe brings the most benefit or the least harm of all the options open to me. I believe that that course of action is to vote for Kerry, so that's what I'll be doing, inshallah. I have a feeling that the delay over the AMT endorsement was over whether to endorse at all, given the reservations that many Muslims have about some of Kerry's positions (especially civil rights and civil liberties, as mentioned in the press release - as far as Kerry is concerned, this issue doesn't seem to even be worth mentioning), and given that an endorsement implies approval. So I think that the AMT made the right choice and did it in the right way. Al-hamdulillah.

Kerry needs to work harder to win Arab-American vote

The latest polls on the Arab-American vote show Kerry still with a comfortable lead on Bush, but Bush is consolidating his support among declared Republicans and among Christian Arabs (who form a substantial percentage of all Arab-Americans; the terms "Arab-American" and "Muslim" are anything but identical). Muslim Arabs are much more strongly opposed to Bush (unfortunately the article seems to be missing a word; it says that "two out of every Muslim Americans support Kerry". Two out of every what? Two out of every three? Four? Five?) Kerry's problem seems to be that he is not capitalizing on his opportunity:

To AAI president James Zogby, it also suggests Kerry's campaign has been unable to take advantage of Arab Americans' clear unhappiness with Bush, particularly regarding his policies in the Middle East. "While Kerry might have secured as much as two-thirds of the Arab-American vote, he remains at less than one-half," said Zogby. "This constituency was clearly ready for a change, but Kerry's campaign has failed to do outreach to Arab-American voters and to define their candidate and his positions." Zogby's analysis accords with at least two other minority ethnic groups, Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans. As with Arab Americans, Kerry's lead among voters in those two groups is fairly substantial, but his campaign's failure to devote more resources and time to cultivating their base, particularly through their communities' media, has been widely criticized by observers who say that Kerry could be making much more headway.

Muslims for Kerry

There's a pretty sleek new site and blog called Muslims for Kerry. It looks to be aimed particularly at Muslims who would otherwise be voting for Nader. As I've noted previously, Nader enjoys a very high level of support among American Muslims, far higher than Bush and far higher than in the general population. This is probably because Nader is Arab-American. In any case, the people behind Muslims for Kerry have clearly spent some time studying their target audience and are tailoring their message accordingly. The site features a blog, links to news stories primarily about the Muslim vote, a section on issues that hopefully will be further developed as the blog matures, and some forums.

Muslims at the Democratic National Convention

A number of Muslims were elected as delegates to the Democratic convention (I believe one or two of the Kucinich delegates are Muslims). They've decided to get together and get organized, the MetroWest Daily reports:

Muslims expect to have their voices heard at the Democratic National Convention. Forty Muslim delegates from across America have come to Boston to have their say during the convention and express their support for Kerry's campaign. The majority, along with local Muslim leaders, plan to also take part in events outside the FleetCenter. Shahid Khan, national finance co-chairman of the John Kerry for President Committee, lives in Framingham and will attend a reception tomorrow hosting Muslim delegates at the Islamic Society of Boston. "We want to mobilize American Muslims in the community and show our support to the Democratic Party," said Khan. "We also hope to interact with local politicians, as a kind of networking opportunity for Muslim leaders." ... ..."We are fragmented as a community because we are all spread out. This is one of the few opportunities we have to communicate and form stronger alliances," said Parwez Wahid, secretary of the Democratic Town Committee in Framingham and one of the organizers of the event. "We will all be there to support the victory in 2004 for Kerry's ticket." Wahid said American Muslims face a serious lack of representation in different facets of American society. According to the Framingham resident, Democrat Muslims are "upset" with the current administration for going to war on Iraq with "no genuine reasons." Wahid mentioned the interest of the government in benefiting from the oil industry and showing no commitment for peace in Iraq. "We all want to be pro-active in our support to the Democratic Party," said Wahid. "I feel the Democratic Party has a commitment for achieving peace in Iraq and for a stronger middle class in America. That's why I support it."

over and out? (no, not this blog)

As of yesterday, I became a "Muslim for Kerry" when Dennis Kucinich endorsed John Kerry for president and ended his own campaign. No surprises here, not for me at any rate. Kucinich had been saying since the beginning that's what he'd do and that's what his campaign was for and I supported him knowing that, because I thought that the best use of my time and energies was to support the progressive cause within the Democratic party. I don't regret it. A few more thoughts. Looking forward to kicking Bush's electoral arse and making him unemployed come November. ;)

the Dean bubble

On January 14, the day after the non-binding D.C. primary, I analyzed the results of that election for the benefit of Kucinich supporters. Because Kucinich supporters were the intended audience, I phrased my analysis in terms of Kucinich's showing and suggested that it might be better than realized (read it to see what I'm talking about). But I could instead have phrased it in terms of Dean's showing - and a better than expected showing for Kucinich means a worse than expected showing for Dean. And that's exactly what D.C. was for Dean: worse than expected. If the basic presumption in my analysis (that few white people voted for Sharpton and Moseley Braun) is correct, then Dean did very poorly among blacks and he was surprisingly weak among whites, considering that his only opponent for this vote was Dennis "I'm polling at 1%" Kucinich. Thus, a week before Iowa, I started wondering if Dean was weaker than people realized (as a Kucinich supporter, I hoped that it meant Kucinich was stronger than people realized). I saw practically no analysis of the D.C. results. What little there was tended to take the tone that Dean had shown he could appeal to black voters or that Sharpton was weak among black voters because he didn't win (sorry, no; do the math). Here's the only analysis I've come across that suggests the D.C. results as a harbinger of Dean's later collapse and it was written yesterday. I've been wondering why the D.C. results got so little attention. Sure, the primary was non-binding, but it can still serve as an opinion poll. In fact, since it has a much larger sample size than the average opinion poll, and specifically reflects voting behavior, it should be a much better predicter than an opinion poll. It doesn't tell us anything about Kerry, Clark, Edwards, or Lieberman (or Gephardt) but it tells us how Dean did when he in effect had the field to himself. During those spans of time when I was wearing a tinfoil hat, I wondered if that was why there was so little attention on it. Dean versus the three "fringe candidates" the media has been trying to remove from the race¹, and he got less than half the total vote? Dean versus Kucinich for the white vote and he didn't get 99%?² Doesn't fit the media-approved storyline very well, does it? Conspiracy theories aside, it was in the week between D.C. and Iowa that Dean's poll numbers suddenly started to go down and the media stopped gushing quite so much in their coverage of him (see my previous entry on media analysis). What's the cause and what's the effect here? That I don't know. The most obvious way to look at it is that the media adulation of Dean dimmed after his unimpressive showing in D.C. and the polls went down after this. But there's no evidence of this; correlation does not equal causation. And we've also now seen that there were some serious internal problems in the Dean campaign. His internet organization was not as strong in the real world as everybody believed. His campaign manager Trippi seems to have spent nearly all of the huge war chest the campaign had amassed, leaving Dean with little more money on hand than Kucinich has, and apparently the money didn't go to anything that really helped get the vote out for Dean. I tend to think that what we're seeing now is how strong (or, how weak) Dean always was, but the media lovefest and the self-congratulatory attitude of many Dean supporters hid this. It was all a big bubble. Dean still has a good middle-tier campaign (assuming he can get his finances under control) and that's a lot better than anybody would have thought he could achieve with his internet organization. A campaign that can combine this with other forms of organizing should do very well in the future. The real problem was that it got inflated all out of proportion and the deflation process hurts pretty darn bad. Update: Clay Shirky also says that the Dean campaign's "inevitability" was a mirage. ¹ The media is still trying to remove Sharpton from the race - right before South Carolina, where he's expected to do well. Way to respect the African-American vote there - not! ² According to my suggested analysis, Dean only got 75% of the white vote while running against Kucinich. Bush's showing of either 85% or 79% in New Hampshire's Republican primary while running against fringe candidates and write-ins has many progressive commentators crowing about his weakness. If that's true, then Dean's weakness is also true.