Xiong wants to become a nurse in California, but says the California State University system won't accept her into a nursing program until she obtains residency — so she might have to settle for a school in another state. The 29-year-old says she's campaigning for Lin because of his Reaganesque views on immigration.
"I am a Republican, but I really cherish the value of new immigrants," Lin says, employing a comforting doctor's murmur. "They bring an energy, they bring a working force to our community that we need to respect." Lin, who grew up in a one-room hut in Taiwan, is pushing for a guest-worker program.
PHOTO BY SIMONE PAZ
Matthew Lin: From a one-room hut in Taiwan to self-made millionaire in Southern California
Related Content
More About
Not since white middle-class conservatives ruled the San Gabriel Valley in the 1970s has a Republican candidate won the area's state or federal seat.
USC polling has shown that Asian-Americans in California, many of them the nation's newest arrivals, are the racial or ethnic group most likely to cross party lines. The secretary of state's office has not broken down June's voter turnout by race or party. But Woo believes more Asians turned out than Latinos (who didn't have a major candidate in the race).
Is Lin's rare version of Republicanism liberal enough — and loud enough — to attract significant numbers of Latino voters in November? Experts say the Latinos of AD49, who make up about 28 percent of eligible voters, are a crucial demographic.
Leo Briones, a Democratic consultant who's running an Assembly campaign for Cristina Garcia in Bell Gardens, Downey and Cerritos, expects most Latinos in AD49 to stick to their Democratic tendencies.
However, Luis Alvarez, a consultant for Joe Gardner, the GOP hopeful in next-door AD48, believes the Latino population is underestimated for its swing potential.
"Dr. Lin certainly has been a part of the Latino community in the San Gabriel Valley from his medical perspective and working in hospitals, so it has almost become a nonpartisan race," Alvarez says. "They feel like he's talking to them instead of at them."
But it may not even come down to that. According to USC political strategy expert Dan Schnur, Latinos across the country aren't feeling very strongly about the presidential election.
"It looks right now like the Obama campaign is having a much more difficult time mobilizing the Latino community" than before, Schnur says. On the topic of immigration in particular, he adds, "The choice for Latinos is between a president who makes promises he doesn't keep and one who doesn't make promises at all."
Lin, who shakes his head at the "inhumanity" of the Romney-Ryan ticket, would be one of the most liberal Republicans to hit Sacramento in years if he pulls off his highly unusual turnover attempt in the long-Democratic San Gabriel Valley: a political mutt at home with himself, but maybe not at home in either of California's two increasingly partisan parties.
