The other day someone asked PITAPOLICY to describe one of the challenges political economy addresses. During an election year, there’s no better example than how political parties try to appeal to small businesses as a voting bloc. Both the US Republican and Democratic parties’ conventions discussed the role of small business in improving the US economy, so PITAPOLICY Consulting Founder, Mehrunisa Qayyum, described her experience as a new, minority small-business owner. The entire version of “Political Parties Try to Appeal to Small Businesses & Minorities” piece was featured on Huffington Post.
- My seatmate had argued that the Tea Party has gotten a bad reputation, much like American Muslims have, because of negative media attention–aside from Islamophobia.
This last observation was certainly new to my ears. But I was willing to listen. He asked me if I would vote for Romney since I struck him as fiscally conservative and operate a small business. I quickly responded, “Well, I’ll definitely follow the Republican National Convention as well as listen to Romney in the coming Presidential debates to see how his party might acknowledge American Muslim voters.” Unfortunately, Congressman Joe Walsh did not really contribute towards warm, fuzzy feelings that @TeamRomney needs if they are trying to appeal to swing voters.
But my seatmate had a point: Americans of Middle Eastern descent and American Muslim voters did share some fiscally conservative views with the GOP–and maybe, perhaps with the Tea Party? A BIG maybe. Fiscal conservatives, like my Mr. Flight Buddy also argued that government wasted much money–about 60 billion— during the Iraq & Afghanistan war. I could not agree with him more on this last point. In 2011, though, the Tea Party has proposed more spending on defense carriers to stimulate job creation. I cannot speak for all American Muslims regarding how they felt about the bailouts in 2008. We are a pretty diverse group when it comes to fiscal policy views. Click here to read whole story…
