War Story 2
You be the judge. Did these two struggles with presidential candidate Clinton, one in 2008 and another in 2016, result in empowering you?
In 2008
Background Info: In early Dec. 2008 Sen. Hillary was the odds-on winner for the Democratic nomination against 8 other candidates. By then, Sen. Biden and Sen. Dodd had each already answered 80-20's questionnaire with 6 yeses. However, Sen. Clinton, instead of answering 80-20's questionnaire, chose to send us a statement that was full of sweet words, signifying nothing. Had we accepted her statements, then all other presidential candidates would follow suit, instead of answering with 6 yeses. 80-20 tried reasoning with her campaign. When that failed, we stepped up to meet the challenge.
The Battle: See date and subject title of 80-20's e-newsletters when the battle was raging.
12/1/07 Clinton's statement vs. 80-20's questions
12/3/07 Faxes from AsAms to Sen. Clinton
12/5/07 Spreading Outrage Against Sen. Clinton
Empowerment: 6 days after the "outrage" email, candidate Clinton graciously replied with 6 yeses and signed it. See below.
To see her complete reply, click here. With that momentum, 80-20 eventually got ALL 9 Democratic presidential candidates, including the eventual nominee Obama to answer with 6-yeses.
The 2nd struggle In 2016
Each presidential campaign is a GOLDEN opportunity for America's minorities to advance toward EQUAL Opportunity by bargaining with the prospective president. In 2016, 80-20 went to work again.
Background Info: The CA Democratic Primary, where 80-20 has influence, was coming up soon. Neither Clinton nor Sanders had answered our questionnaire. As a result, 80-20 didn't have the leverage to play one candidate against the other. So we decided to gamble and finesse Sec. Clinton since she was the odds-on candidate to win the Democratic nomination.
The Finesse: Even without Sanders' support, 80-20 made a tactical decision calling on AsAms to vote for Sanders in the coming CA primary, UNLESS Sec. Clinton would answer our questionnaire satisfactorily. That broke the "blockade" or "logjam".
It Worked: Within 2 days, Sec. Clinton answered our questionnaire. Click here to read her reply. In 2016, she didn't answer any organization's questionnaire with just yes or no, so we accepted her statements addressing our questions.
Empowerment: Some of her answers were great, but one was not satisfactory. So we traded by asking for two areas of 80-20 input on her future appointments, were she to became the president. She agreed. As a result, 80-20 endorsed her for the CA Democratic primary. By the way, that was the first time that a presidential candidate has, in writing, agreed to give an AsAm NGO (non-government organization) input into future appointments.
Good news came in pairs. Seeing that Hillary had replied to 80-20, Sen. Sanders' camp also wanted to answer our questionnaire. But we respectfully declined, because we had already endorsed Sec. Clinton for the coming CA primary.
The above war story shows us how politics is really done in the U.S. More importantly, we must NOT underestimate our own strength. When we have the courage to fight, we shall empower ourselves!
S. B. Woo
President and a volunteer for the past 18 years
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