Presidential Candidates Seek Support From Ethnic Networks

AFFLUENT IMMIGRANT GROUPS EMBRACE POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT
By Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/31/2007 01:29:23 AM PDT

He's not sure if he's registered as a Republican or a Democrat, he's never met Barack Obama face to face, and he didn't even know that as the host of a cocktail fundraiser for a would-be U.S. president, he would have to personally phone would-be guests.

Yet Saeed Amidi, a political novice, is pulling out all the stops to invite friends and business colleagues to his Sunnyvale complex for start-up companies to meet Obama on Saturday, for a $1,000 contribution to the U.S. senator's presidential bid.

Why?

Because the native of Iran thinks more valley leaders such as himself, successful business-minded immigrants who have grown wealthy from tech booms, should get more involved in politics. Amidi, 47, has been here 30 years, leaving Iran as a student before the 1979 revolution.

But, he laughed at how naive he was. Politics is hard work. "I thought I could just put my name on the invitation and they would come. You have to call people, too. I've never done this before." And that's the point. The presidential campaigns are tapping into first-generation valley business and ethnic-community leaders, notably Indo-Americans as well as Iranian-Americans, to raise money through their extensive business and cultural networks. And they are finding an eager audience of people who want to be heard on issues ranging from immigration reform to education to the war in Iraq.

More at the link - http://origin.mercurynews.com/ci_6026627