Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Too Transparent: Scion's Insis... | Forward Seattle For Velazquez? »

Friday, October 19, 2007

Shakedown in Chinatown?

posted by on October 19 at 13:05 PM

Hillary Clinton is going to be in Seattle on Monday, and in honor of her arrival, Peter Masundire, media director for Washington for Obama, forwarded me this LA Times story.

NEW YORK — Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door.

And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.

All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate — Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton’s campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.

What’s going on?

Clinton has enlisted the aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants. The associations help them with everything from protection against crime to obtaining green cards.

Many of Clinton’s Chinatown donors said they had contributed because leaders in neighborhood associations told them to. In some cases, donors said they felt pressure to give.

And there’s more. Read the whole story here.

RSS icon Comments

1

Guess Obama is no longer shilling for the Veep job. Bummer.

Posted by Big Sven | October 19, 2007 1:09 PM
2

Guess there is something to that Sopranos knockoff video the HRC camp put out ...

Clinton would never ask him to be VP, and vice-versa, you should have seen her face after his speech at the convention in '04. Priceless!

Posted by Shan | October 19, 2007 1:29 PM
3

It's a really odd story, but not even a little surprising, ultimately. I am disappointed that the odds of a Clinton/Obama ticket are less than nil, because that was the only way I could see Hillary easily winning. Since Hil is definitely getting the nom (barring a sex cult scandal or baby-eating revelations), that means I have to grind my teeth about who is winning until the last minute.
-

Posted by christopher | October 19, 2007 1:48 PM
4

Well, sure, but that's because Sen Clinton is hoping for an Obama-Clinton ticket.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 19, 2007 1:53 PM
5

Since Hil is definitely getting the nom
Who really supports Hillary, thinks she'd make a good President, or likes her as a human being?

She has simply cultivated an aura of inevitability.

My attitude: if she can't even keep her husband's pecker in his pants, how will she win the respect of foreign leaders?

Posted by obama man | October 19, 2007 2:44 PM
6

Jeez, she's got the tongs? That's bizarre.

Still, I don't think they matter that much overall.

Posted by Fnarf | October 19, 2007 2:53 PM
7

Since Hil is definitely getting the nom
Who really supports Hillary, thinks she'd make a good President, or likes her as a human being?
She has simply cultivated an aura of inevitability.

And the third sentence gives weight to the first. I don't know who these millions of people are that want her, but apparently they think they can beat the right-wing's joy-joy when she runs.

Posted by torrentprime | October 19, 2007 3:54 PM
8

@5.

You had me on your first two lines, and completely lost me in the end. you could have come up with a better reason for hating Hil than the one Ann Coulter and my Bush adoring mother use so much.

Posted by jewritto | October 19, 2007 4:21 PM
9

obama man-

"Who really supports Hillary, thinks she'd make a good President, or likes her as a human being?"

Wellllll, 44% of Democrats, for starters.

Your circle of friends =/= the entire Democratic base

Posted by Big Sven | October 19, 2007 4:46 PM
10

Dude, the correct symbol is != (not equal) instead of =/=.

Get it right.

Sen Clinton is as inevitable as Sen Hubert Humphrey.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 19, 2007 5:28 PM
11

But that doesn't mean she wouldn't make a better President than any of the seven evolution-hating Red Bushie dwarves going for the nod.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 19, 2007 5:30 PM
12

The GOP motto right now is "run Hillary run!"

Posted by mikeblanco | October 19, 2007 7:43 PM
13

#11 - Not so, I believe that Newt Gingrich has been saying Mrs. Clinton would have a very good chance of winning the presidency. The GOP would rather run against Edwards or Obama.

Posted by raindrop | October 19, 2007 10:37 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).