What makes 80-20 effective

How 80-20 helped induce the Bush Administration to make its two APA Cabinet appointments.

On 12/14/00 (Thursday), in a conference call among 80-20’s Steering Comm. members a decision was made to find a way to induce President Bush to appoint an APA cabinet member. Thereafter, SB called two noted Republican APA leaders Matt Fong and John Tsu to coordinate efforts. Without reaching either, he left messages inquiring how 80-20 can be helpful to them.

Matt Fong called back while he was visiting Washington D.C. SB asked how things are progressing for the APA GOP leaders in term of getting appointments, including possibly a cabinet appointment. Matt said a large number of the APA Republican leaders were gathered in D.C. They were trying to pool their political assets to lobby for APA cabinet and sub-cabinet appointments. However, they were having trouble getting appointments to see the right people.

SB asked who were the persons to see. Matt named two. One was Andrew H. Card who was then the Chief of Staff of the Transition Team (T.T.) headed by V. P. Cheney. Card later became Bush's Chief of Staff. Another person was Clayton Johnson III, Exec. Director of T.T. SB stated that Card was not easy to get hold of. However, not being able to see Johnson was NOT a good sign. Matt agreed.

SB then asked how 80-20 could be helpful to them? Matt expressed the wish to generate public pressure to open the right doors. SB promised to help create that pressure.

On 12/21/00, SB sent an e-mail to the T.T. Office addressed to Cheney, who headed the Office. S.B.’s e-mail is seen below as Exhibit IIa. It took the carrot approach, stating:

“APAs as yet do not identify themselves with either party, we are here ready for you to make a move to win us over. Asian Americans reside mostly in CA, NY, and NJ. These are states rich with electoral college votes that the GOP could win in 2004.”

On 12/27/00, not having heard back from Cheney, 80-20 went to its trump card, sending an e-mail to its 230,000 supporters and urging them to send e-mails to the Transition Office. See Exhibit IIb for that e-mail.

Although SB didn’t ask to be copied in, hundreds of supporters copied SB in while e-mailing President-elect Bush and V.P.-elect Cheney. 80-20 estimated that at least 1000 e-mails went into the Transition Office on the SAME day. (80-20 supporters have always responded to our “calls to action” most enthusiastically. When 80-20 called for faxing a petition to President Clinton to pardon W. H. Lee with a copy to S.B., 750 copies were faxed to S.B’s fax machine in 4 days. These copies are still available, if doubters want to see them. E-mailing is much easier than faxing through to two fax machines -- one in the White House and the other in S.B’s office.)

On 12/28/00, using the tremendous and immediate response from its supporters, 80-20 lobbied the media to “call the Transition Office to get its response” to the aspirations of the APA community. See Exhibit IIc for 80-20’s e-mail to about 400 media reporters. Many reporters from the largest mainstream media did call the Transition Office.

The next day, on 12/29/00, the transition office responded positively. For the first time V.P.-elect Cheney called Norman Mineta, a Democrat, and inquired about his interest to serve in the Bush administration. The rest is history.

These successes illustrate two things:

First, 80-20 is effective. Second, 80-20 understands how politics works. Since day one, 80-20 had stressed that it didn’t matter whether 80-20’s endorsed candidate won or lost the election. So long as 80-20 delivers a bloc vote, the APA community would win.

A little humor shouldn’t hurt politics. Prior to the Mineta’s appointment, many APA GOP leaders started saying that it was all 80-20’s fault in endorsing Gore that caused Bush not to appoint an APA cabinet member. Now that there are two APA cabinet officers, was it all to 80-20’s credit? :-) Of course not! We all share the same goal, though using different approaches. There is no reason that APA Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and 80-20’s leadership shouldn’t work together, whenever feasible. Winning equal justice and opportunity for the APA community is the only important goal.

80-20 is non-partisan. We love to work with both major political parties. The party that performs the most deeds to help the APA community will get 80-20’s support in the next election. Readers may also want to note that most of the 80-20 leaders have no personal political ambition at all. Some have even announced publicly not to run for election and accept any government appointment. 80-20 aims to be a property of the community, by the community, and for the community.