Demographics

Attacking a religious organization rarely works, said Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a political think tank in southern California.

"In fact, it's counterproductive," said Mathews, who supports gay marriage. He said he understands why opponents of the ballot measure would target the LDS Church.

"The tenor of the Republican party's rhetoric (on immigration) was clearly a turnoff," said Gregory Rodriguez, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. "We know the electorate will become increasingly nonwhite. Presumably Republicans will go back to trying to be 'big tent' Republicans, because if they want to resurrect the party, they can't be the white party." LINK

While walking to work on the morning of Election Day, I was struck by the number of times I encountered Barack Obama’s beaming countenance on posters and bumper stickers. To be sure, I live in a neighbourhood in the District of Columbia that is particularly thick with the politically obsessive, but I’ve also encountered striking portraits of America’s next president across the country. Will the Obama iconography fade away as voters grow disillusioned? Or will Obama directly appeal to his supporters to march in the streets when he… more

“Both Muslims and Arab-Americans have been ill-treated in this political environment,” noted Steve Clemons, a veteran observer of American politics and popular blogger who is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank. “There has been some tacit acceptance of that, even by people around Barack Obama,” he added. LINK

As the financial crisis takes down Wall Street, the regular folks on Main Street are biting their nails, watching the toxic tsunami head their way. But for all our nightmares of drowning in a sea of bad mortgages, foreclosed homes and shrunken retirement plans, the truth is that the effects of this meltdown won't be all bad in the long run. In one regard, it could offer our society a net positive: Forced into belt-tightening, Americans are likely to strengthen our family and community ties and to… more

Recently, I wrote here that the fundamentals of the 2008 race decisively favor Barack Obama. As is often the case, however, my words were met with a familiar riposte: What about the race factor? Are white Americans really ready to elect a black man as president? It's a recurrent refrain among Democrats and even some hopeful Republicans. As Andrew Kohut wrote here, "56 percent of Democrats believe that many people will not vote for Mr. Obama because he is black."

With the first ever African-American… more

In case you're wondering who the beautiful new woman on CNN who knows so much about gastrointestinal viruses is, her name is Roshini Rajapaksa. It's difficult to pronounce but, like that of her ubiquitous colleague Sanjay Gupta, unmistakably of the Indian subcontinent. From Silicon Valley to Citigroup, the new face of success is increasingly of a rich caramel-brown color. Vikram Pandit has led the charge to rescue banking behemoth Citi, and Bobby Jindal, the whiz-kid Indian-American governor of Louisiana, could find himself with a new job in a… more

Learning English is an essential skill for immigrants and their children, both for their personal success and for the good of the nation, said Tomás Jiménez, an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy think tank.

"To borrow a non-English phrase, English is the lingua franca of the United States," said Jiménez, who also teaches sociology at Stanford University. "There are folks on the right who want people to speak only English, and there are folks on the left who think it's unimportant.… more

The first thing you see as you approach the campus of the University of Mississippi, in the town of Oxford, is a 100-year-old statue of a Confederate soldier that stands in front of a grand, columned building know as the Lyceum. This is the university's administration building and the heart of "Ole Miss." It is also the spot where, 46 years ago, a riot broke out when James Meredith became the first black student to enroll in the university.

Now, this coming Friday, Ole Miss will… more

Parag Khanna, director, Global Governance Initiative at New America Foundation, says, "Ethnic Indian intellectual leaders have given a positive interpretation to developments in India. So, it has been mutually beneficial." LINK