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Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik created this sculpture on Puri Beach near Bhubaneswar, India |
Its all about fight election night from now through Tuesday and the sense of excitement has been building (around the world even, as you can see in the picture above). I am now getting text messages from excited friends who have been “deployed” in battleground states as part of the 72 hour GOTV effort. I have also heard from South Asian Americans who are helping to bring potential new hires to the attention of the candidate’s transition teams. Tuesday should not be the end of desi political involvement but rather a new beginning. Anyone currently participating who thinks their job is done on Tuesday after simply voting doesn’t have an appreciation for the work needed to maintain a democracy. One of the founding fathers understood this well:
Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. – John Adams [Link]
A couple of weeks ago I asked for reader’s help in identifying some local desi candidates that we should keep an eye on Tuesday night. One of those identified was Republican
Sashi Sabaratnam McEntee who is a Sri Lankan American running for State Senate District 3 in California. Here is video from a recent debate between her and her Democratic opponent Mark Leno:
A 34-year-old Republican business consultant who has never before run for office is hoping to score a David-and-Goliath upset over Democrat Mark Leno in the race for the 3rd District State Senate seat in November.
Sashi McEntee, who expects to give birth to her first child in December, said she was recruited by members of the Marin Republican Party…McEntee, who describes herself as a moderate Republican, favors some form of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. She opposes Proposition 8, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, and opposes criminalizing abortion. But she supports Proposition 4, which would require that the parents of minors be contacted and a 48-hour waiting period enforced before a doctor performs an abortion.
“I think that parents need to be involved in all medical decisions related to underage children,” McEntee said. [Link]<
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Sahsi’s trip to the Republican National Convention was featured by the Washington Post. She says she represents the many other “closet Republicans” out there in Northern California.
Another local candidate to watch is Muhammad Ali Hasan (who now goes simply by Ali Hasan) in the Colorado House District 56 race. Hasan, who is only 29, was a
founder of Muslims for Bush (which dissolved in 2005, don’t know why) and later of Muslims for America (still active).
After much deliberation and extensive consultations with Republican Party officials, Ali Hasan has decided to seek the State House of Representatives seat for District 56. Official announcements and town hall style meetings with numerous party leaders have been scheduled for Friday, December 7 and Monday, December 10..
Republican Party leaders including House Minority Leader, Mike May, and Leadership Team members David Balmer and Amy Stephens, among others, recruited Hasan to run for the House seat instead of State Senate District 8, where Hasan initially filed his candidacy. When elected, Hasan would have more of a leadership role and have a brighter future with the party by serving in the House of Representatives. Republican House Leadership has identified the District 56 seat as a high priority goal in the 2008 election, and Hasan is a natural choice to replace the outgoing Representative, Dan Gibbs, because Hasan is energetic, passionate about the Western Slope and is eager to reform and strengthen the party. [Link]
Recently Hasan’s Democratic challenger, incumbent Rep. Christine Scanlan, was accused by his mother of dirty politics and a smear campaign. Probably something about Hasan being Muslim or Bush supporter right? Nope, the “smear campaign” in this case has to do with…breast cancer. Here is Seeme Hasan’s letter to the editor of the Vail Daily:
Is there no decency left in the Colorado Democratic leadership? My son, Ali Hasan, is running for House District 56, and, according to the editor-in-chief of the Vail Daily, is the only candidate who has been the victim of negative attacks perpetrated by Democratic Party leadership and allies of Ali’s opponent, Rep. Christine Scanlan…One of the blatant lies hurled about Ali in this latest mailer hurts Ali and my family very deeply as it relates to breast cancer. Anyone event tangentially associated with Ali’s campaign knows how passionately he feels about breast cancer. In his advertisements this summer he has talked about breast cancer. Almost exactly one year ago, Ali’s only living grandparent, and my only living parent, passed away because of a rapidly progressive kind of breast cancer. Out of support for her during her chemotherapy, he shaved his head when she lost her hair.
The negative mailer says that Ali will not let women have mammograms. [Link]
In the next day or so I will profile a couple more candidates to keep an eye on Tuesday night and then bring you results on election night.
It’s interesting to me that the SF/Marin Republican Parties are running two desi women against, and to replace, Mark Leno: Harmeet Dhillon is running for Mark Leno’s vacated Assembly seat (District 13, against Tom Ammiano — Leno has termed out of the Assembly).
Also really interesting is Paul Singh, who is running for CA AD-02 on the Democratic ticket way up in north county with an agriculturalist background.
Since the GOP is such a long shot in such places, you actually stand a decent chance of getting on the ticket as a political novice. On the other hand, it’s very hard to become the Democratic nominee in Northern CA, b/c once you get the nomination, you’re virtually assured victory later on.
Used to live in Norcal. The GOP has to play differently in Marin than they would let’s say in Walnut Creek or Sacramento for that matter. Marin Repubs tend to be old hippie libertarian types, they loved Ron Paul. Evangelicals, enthusiastic foreign interventionists will not get very far. I think Ms. Dhillon with her ACLU cred is a viable candidate for this demographic and would get get alot of Dem/Undeclared votes
there are a fair # of tom campbell republicans around the bay area. people normalize themselves to their local political distribution; the repubs are the “right” party and the dems “left” in this country (i knew a guy who was a republican in boston who realized he had to switch to democrat when he moved to fairfax county in virgina in the mid-90s after attending a meeting of virginia republians). so in the bay area those who are more in favor of small gov. naturally would be republicans. but tom campbell was as socially liberal as many of the other bay area reps, and he is against prop 8.
It seems from the letter that the Dems have been doing push polling, emphasizing his muslim roots to scare away voters. The Dems’ hypocrisy is hardly surprising though, throwing a hissy fit when Obama’s middle name is used but not shying away from using Islamophobia for their own ends. Wonder what Obama would say of this.
5 · Digital Cabinet said
I have spent some time googling for details, but the only evidence that crops up for this is this letter by Hasan’s mother. Does somebody have more details about what this mailer was, and who is responsible for it etc.?
Mohamad Ali Hasan is the brother of Asma Gul Hasan, the other “Muslim for Bush”, and an early Muslim-American supporter of the Iraq war, who is sueing SM favorite Basim Usmani of the Kominas for a song he wrote calling her “wealthy, self-absorbed, insensitive and acutely uninformed.”