Why Republicans Can't Harness Indian-American Patel Power
Shikha Dalmia|
Mitt Romney might not have baptized any dead people lately, but 10,000 miles away in India a Hindu priest recently concluded a yajna on his behalf. A yajna is a nine-day prayer ceremony that, in this case, involved 16 local participants who poured 16 kgs of pure ghee on a sacred bonfire while chanting Sanskrit mantras and offering 100 kgs of barley to the Tantaric deity Bagula Mukhi.Kannubhai Patel, an Indian émigré, who moved to the United States 20 years ago and quickly acquired (guess what?) a chain of motels, paid for the entire event because he is a die-hard Republican and wanted to do something to help swing the polls in poor Mitt’s direction. So he called his friend and priest in his native village and instructed him to conduct the yajna to enlist Goddess Mukhi on Mitt’s side. When queried about the neck-and-neck results after the latest debate between Obama and Romney, the priest confidently predicted:
“There is still time. The result will be favorable.” But Patel is clearly an outlier in the 2.85-million strong Indian community, 84% of whose members voted for Barack Obama in 2008 -- second only to the 95% support that Obama drew among blacks. Even without Obama’s star power, 65% of Indians generally vote Democratic.
Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/31/why-republicans-cant-harness-indian-amer
