The Democratic National Committee’s rules committee today decided to seat the Democratic National Convention delegations from Florida and Michigan, but with those delegates receiving one-half vote each.

The Associated Press reports that the decision today "increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama 66 delegates short but still within striking distance after the three final primaries are held in the next three days."

The proceedings were marred by constant interruptions from numerous pro-Clinton individuals in the audience of the meeting room.  At some points, some of them even booed and hissed during the remarks of a pro-Obama committee member.

Sometimes in the discussion of race and politics, it’s easy to forget that over 4 million Americans have mixed racial heritage.  For these Americans, racial identity is more complex than black and white, or even black, white, brown, and yellow.  Their experience is incredibly diverse, and mixed race Americans can identify with some, all, or none of the elements of their heritage.

We’ve already heard some discussion of whether Sen. Obama’s heritage makes him black, white, both, neither, or something that doesn’t fall easily into any of those categories.  And though the term "mixed race" encompasses virtually endless permutations, many multiracial Americans are coming to see themselves as a unique group in their own right, sharing experiences and perspectives even if their backgrounds differ widely.  And many of them identify strongly with Sen. Obama’s struggles with racial identity and belonging as chronicled in his book, Dreams from My Father.  Sen. Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, is also mixed race of Indonesian and Caucasian heritage.

MSNBC has a great article on the subject, featuring folks such as Louie Gong, who is part Native American, Chinese, French, and Scottish, and founder of the Mixed Heritage Center.  A mom discusses how her half-black, half-white kids, like Obama, discovered that when they were older that for most purposes, American society treated them as African American, even though they’re biracial and their father is an African immigrant without American slave heritage.  Another white woman who married a black man nearly 50 years ago noted how when her kids grew up, she just assumed the world would regard them as African American, so she basically thought of their identity that way, too.  Now she says that the growing number of multiracial Americans has allowed people to claim multiple, simultaneous identities - a choice that was not really afforded her kids in the 60s.

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The Texas Democratic Party Convention will take place in Austin, Texas, next Friday, June 5 and Saturday, June 6, at the Austin Convention Center.  An unprecedented 15,000+ delegates are expected to attend.

Join other Obama supporters for the Turn Texas Blue party from 8-Midnight on Thursday, June 4, at the Club de Ville at 900 Red River.  Hopefully, we’ll also be celebrating Sen. Obama’s clinching of the nomination after the final contests of the 2008 primary season.

Several AAPIs for Obama will be running for national delegate at the state convention, including Arun Kumar, Bobbi Kommineni, and me (Ramey Ko), whose websites are featured in the AAPI Candidates links on the left side of this page.

When I went to  help with the Primary in Hawaii, I met great people all over Honolulu and the Big Island.  On the buses I met people who upon seeing my Obama button asked where they could get one and commented, "He’s my homeboy!"  It was great to experience the Aloha spirit, but trust me when I say it was not all fun, sun and beaches! Over the 4 days there, I got about 12-16 hours of sleep.  I also met some of the hardest working and the most dedicated Obama volunteers ever, including Brian Schatz and Andy Winer.

After the Hawaii state Democratic party biannual meeting, I got this exciting report from Andy.  A great number of delegates for Obama are AAPI!.

The Democratic Party of Hawaii held its biannual meeting from May 23 to May 25.  At the convention, delegates selected former state representative Brian Schatz as its new Party Chair.  Schatz worked on the Hawaii Obama campaign from its inception, and he has committed as a superdelegate for Senator Obama.

The convention also finalized the selection of the Obama national delegates.  Including superdelegates, the 21 Obama national delegates include 8 Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders.  The 8 are as follows:

   1. U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka (Chinese/Hawaiian)
   2. Rep. Mazie Hirono (Japanese)
   3. Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann (Samoan)
   4. State Senator Donna Mercado Kim (Filipino/Korean)
   5. Vice Chair of the Hawaii Democratic Party Kari Luna (Filipino)
   6. Donna Hoshide (super Obama campaign volunteer)(Japanese
   7. Caroline Sinavaiana (University of Hawaii professor)(Samoan)
   8. Al Lewis (Hawaiian)

In addition, all 3 Obama alternate delegates are Asian American/Pacific Islanders
1. Lono Lyman (Hawaiian)
   2. Gil Keith-Agaran (Filipino)
   3. Melody Aduja (Filipino)

The convention also featured a terrific speech by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Barack.  Maya Soetoro-Ng, Barack’s sister, introduced Rep. Abercrombie to the crowd of approximately 1000 delegates.

The Hawaii delegation is looking forward to the national convention, where we will get to see Barack, a native born son of Hawaii, receive the nomination of the Democratic Party.

Santa Clara law professor Margaret M. Russell and Stephanie M. Wildman write today on the Feminist Law Professors blog about the debate over whether a "true women’s rights supporter [can] endorse Obama over Hillary Clinton, without guilt or ambivalence."

While being a woman is a defining characteristic for us, it does not dictate the manner in which our brains work. Women’s equality is a core principle of our personhood, yet it does not always lead us to the same conclusions. If progress for women means anything, it must include the right to debate principles of governance and to choose which candidate best embodies those precepts.

One of us is a white woman of Clinton’s generation — ostensibly the demographic epitome of the key Hillary supporter. The other is an African-Asian-American middle-aged woman — someone who arguably could fit the profile of either Obama’s or Clinton’s “base.” But, like all voters, we are more than the sum of demographic data.

Both professors are closely tied to the Equal Justice Society, the nonprofit where I work.  Prof. Russell is on our board and Prof. Wildman is a co-founder.

A New York Times article today speculating on possible Obama appointments to the Supreme Court mentions Yale Law School dean Harold Koh:

Another possible candidate is Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale
Law School, an esteemed legal scholar and former human rights official
in the Clinton State Department, who would become the court’s first
Asian-American justice.

Koh served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights
and Labor from 1998-2001 and as law clerk to Judge Malcolm Wilkey of
the D.C. Circuit and Justice Henry Blackman of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He has written more than 80 articles and several books, including The National Security Constitution, which won the American Political Science Association’s award as best book on the American Presidency.

Koh has received more than 20 awards for his human rights work and was named by American Lawyer magazine as one of America’s 45 leading public sector lawyers under the age of 45, by A Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Asian Americans of the 1990s, and by K/100 as one of the hundred most influential Korean Americans in the first century of Korean immigration.

Fukuyama, a former contributor to the Reagan Doctrine who has since become disillusioned with the Bush administration, is voicing his support for Sen. Barack Obama.

Read the interview at: http://au.news.yahoo.com/080527/21/170xi.html

An exerpt:

ELEANOR HALL: That is a big shift for you, isn’t it? To go from a registered Republican voter to an Obama supporter.

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: Yeah, but I think a number of people are doing that this year because I think the world is different at this juncture and we need a different foreign policy and there is this larger question about in American politics, I do think that we are at the end of a long generational cycle that began with Reagan’s election back in 1980 and I think unless you have a degree of competition and alternation in power, certain ideas and habits are going to get too entrenched.

Here’s an interesting op-ed from ABS-CBN news, a current affairs organization based in the Phillipines. Carlo Osi, its author, outlines three main qualities that the senator represents- new politics, not an agent of continuity, and the promise of change.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=119137

Here’s an interesting op-ed from ABS-CBN news, a current affairs organization based in the Phillipines. Carlo Osi, its author, outlines three main qualities that the senator represents- new politics, not an agent of continuity, and the promise of change.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=119137

Konrad Ng posts today about the addition of three more superdelegates for Obama: the new Hawai’i state Democratic Party chair Brian Schatz, vice chair Kari Luna and at-large superdelegate James Burns.

Schatz (photo) is a former state representative. Luna is a Maui teacher. And Burns is a former state appeals court judge and the son of Gov. John Burns, the second governor of the state of Hawai’i and its first Democratic governor.  Burns is considered to be the father of Hawai’i’s Democratic Party.

With the additional three superdelegates, the AP count stands at 1,977 delegates overall for Obama, just 49 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination. Clinton has 1,779.