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Twitter
Our group Twitter account is at http://www.twitter.com/aa4o
To properly send Twitters to other Asian Americans for Obama, in your
Twitter client, type "d aa4o #aa4o [your message here]".
Those of you already adding the #aa4o hashtag did a great job during the last debate.
The results are below.
Obama Shout-outs
Latest on Sun, 07:19
Raghda: I just pay off my credit cards ctllpeoemy when the bill arrives. I haven't paid a cent in interest but have received several gift cards from them [...]
ALexandre: Heres my oipoinn on Heres my oipoinn on green energy.If green energy made sense economically, then the free market would have gone that way. The research that [...]
Wendy: Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "There would be long-lasting ecmoonic damage. The economy would be back in recession. Tax revenues would be falling again and the deficit increasing."Sounds [...]
Marisol: Either Obama has no stomach for learedship, taking some big risks without which nothing big will be accomplished, OR he really is just a representative of the kind of people [...]
Safica: Suze is right. Most people at least use cridet cards, but YES should do so responsibly! Credit card companies need MORE laws holding them in check! [...]
Captioned Media for Obama has uploaded captioned versions of Parag Mehta’s video on the Asian American community with both English and Japanese captions. Captions in Tagalog will be available shortly. To view videos in other formats, please see more at Captioned Media’s Inauguration Coverage.
Nike Ching of Voice of America Radio China recently interviewed Obama transition team executive director and Cabinet Secretary-Designate Chris Lu. You can see an article in Chinese on the VOA News website, as well as download an MP3 of the interview.
If anyone is interested in helping to translate the article and interview for Asian Americans for Obama, please contact us at info@asianamericansforobama.com.
Although it started with good intentions, the Sonal Shah saga is fast becoming a political witchhunt.
As you may know, Sonal Shah was recently appointed to President-Elect Obama’s Transition Team. For her part, Shah brings impressive credentials to the table. Currently an executive with Google, Shah had served as a Clinton Treasurer Department official, worked for Obama Transition Co-Chair John Podesta (at the Center for American Progress), and was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs.
Between the Thanksgiving holiday (my first try at making turducken was a qualified success, but I was pretty satisfied with my virgin attempt) and coming down with what was probably the flu, I’ve been absent from the blog this last week. In that time, Allan, Eugenia, Keith, and Nina have admirably held down the fort, particularly with the flurry of presidential appointment news this week. But as the founder of this site, though by no means the pre-eminent editorial voice, I felt I should chime in with a few general thoughts on the transition and AAPI political appointments in particular.
The discussion below reflects information generally available to anyone who makes an effort to be active in Asian American & Pacific Islander issues and activism and has been following the Obama transition and campaign closely; in other words, you don’t need special access to get the underlying facts. I emphasize this point mainly to underscore the need for people to do their homework. Uninformed arguments don’t advance discourse, nor do they leave the participants or audience any better off.
The Vietnam Veterans of America today described President-elect Obama’s selection of Gen. Eric Shinseki as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs a “promising choice” citing Shinseki’s “integrity and personal fortitude to usher in the real changes needed to make the VA a true steward of our nation’s veterans and their families.”
“Veterans of all political persuasions should take heart and applaud this choice,” said John Rowan, the organization’s national president.
Shinseki would be only the third Asian American appointed to a Cabinet position, following Norman Mineta’s tenure at both Commerce and Transportation and Elaine Chao’s stint at Labor.
Veterans Affairs is the second largest department in the federal government, established 20 years ago this coming March by President Reagan.
The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder mistakenly noted that Shinseki’s name was absent from any speculation of potential nominees. Dale Minami and Maeley Tom both mentioned Shinseki as a superbly qualified Cabinet member.
CHICAGO — Retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki will be named as Barack Obama’s Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs Sunday afternoon in Chicago.
The surprise pick adds yet another heavyweight to the Obama cabinet, and also takes a not-so-subtle slap at President Bush’s original national security team.
Shinseki served as Chief of Staff of the Army and retired a four-star general in 2003. Like Obama a native of Hawaii, Shinseki served two combat tours in Vietnam, where he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Shinseki, who is of Japanese ancestry, becomes the first Asian-American [sic] in the new Cabinet.
Well, there you go. One of the earliest major voices against the war gets a cabinet position of great importance in dealing with our veterans as they return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Those of you who have been impatient for a real Cabinet position for an Asian American have finally been listened to by Obama. Unlike Elaine Chao’s position at Department of Labor, I seriously doubt Obama will denigrate Shinseki’s new role the way Bush routinely used Elaine Chao to hobble the Department of Labor’s oversight role over labor relations.
Obama in an MSNBC segment from Meet the Press tomorrow took some time to discuss Shinseki’s status as a fellow Hawaiian as well:
What’s interesting is that Obama points out that it’s a day of remembrance tomorrow for the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. It’s an interesting turn of events when a Japanese American is asked to run the very department that takes care of American soldiers during an event that commemorates the World War II conflict with Japan. Japanese Americans, you’ve come a long way, baby!
This should also help to quiet the ridiculous assertions by some of the critics on this blog that we should somehow start to band together against a President-elect who hasn’t passed a secret Asian American litmus test. Let’s hope that our fellow Asian Americans won’t be stupid and try to start a campaign against Obama’ secret anti-Asian agenda.
Adm. Blair was previously the Commander-in-Chief of US Pacific Command, the highest ranking officer over US forces in the Asia Pacific region. He’s also the John M. Shalikashvili Chair in National Security Studies at The National Bureau of Asian Research. Many scholars of the Asia Pacific region have expressed hopes throughout the election season that Sen. Obama’s relative youth and personal and childhood connections to the Asia Pacific region bode well for a renewed focus on US foreign policy in that area.
I just got off of the SAALT conference call/webinar with Parag Mehta, Constituency Liaison on the Obama-Biden Transition Team. The slides and audio for the conference call will be up in a day or so at SAALT’s web site (we will also post a link here). For now, here’s a brief summary of the call that particularly pertains to getting a job in the Administration:
Everyone must go through the application process at Change.gov. (Even Parag and Tom Daschle had to do this to get their jobs.)
Figure out which agency or department you want to work for and then look in either the Plum Book or the Prune Book to see what positions are available. (Keep in mind that positions listed in the Plum Book may change, depending on the incoming Administration.)
The Prune Book is put together by an outside organization and is slightly easier to follow.
Keep in mind that the Plum Book does not include job descriptions, so go to the web site of the department or agency that you’re interested in and try to find the biography of the person who currently holds the position you’re interested in to see what they do and what their qualifications are.
The bulk of the jobs will be located in DC, VA and MD, but there will be positions located all over the country. So if you want to stay in the state that you currently reside in, make sure to note that on the Change.gov application.
Consider doing an internship if you’re a student or if you’re just starting out.
This will be a long process, and it may take months or more to fill all of the positions. Right now, the Transition team is focusing on filling the high-level positions (Cabinet, sub-Cabinet appointees, etc.) before moving on to the lower-level political appointments. But it will be a rolling process, so keep an eye out for new positions and openings are they’re made available.
The Transition Team is looking for volunteers, so if you’re in the DC or Chicago area, consider dropping by to help out with data entry and more!
There was much more that was covered during the hour (Parag was very generous with his time and accessibility), so keep an eye on this space for when we post a link to the full audio and slides!
Tons of people have been trying to get to know more about the process of getting a job within the Administration. You may be happy to know that there are Asian organizations dedicated to getting Asian Americans into positions within the Federal Government. The hunt is on!
APIAVote held a great informational session on the 18th of November via phone conference with two former Clinton Administration staffers, Maria Haley and Bob Nash. The one thing I came away with is that it’s a full-time job looking for a full-time job in the Administration. Here are some quick points:
You will have to summon up all your moxie to put yourself on the line for an appointment within the administration.
Ok, there’s more than one thing. You need to get yourself immediately to the Plum Book. It’s the book that lists all the potential jobs that the Obama Administration has to fill during its tenure in the White House. Don’t worry, they’re almost never entirely filled. If you can’t get in on this round, you might just find the position opening up in two years or so.
Learn about the kind of positions that the Obama Administration can appoint you to. Don’t try to get a position that is reserved for a career bureaucrat.
Use all the connections you gathered during your time with the campaign.
Your participation in the campaign also plays a role in who gets selected to a position. Basically, you’re rewarded for your support of Obama during his campaign. Yeah, it’s not a meritocracy. It’s a nearly 200 year old political tradition, “to the victor goes the spoils“.
There’s a ton of information and I’m going to leave it to you to listen to the MP3 file that APIAVote posted shortly after this talk containing the phone conference.
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January 19th, 2009 
