Just a brief post on this: Surya Yalamanchili, the Democratic congressional candidate from Ohio we mentioned last week, just won the primary in Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District.
He defeated David Krikorian by 650 votes; last week, Krikorian made comments about the difficulty a person with the name “Yalamanchili” might have in winning an election. Yalamanchili is going on to face the sitting representative for the district, Jean Schmidt, in the general election in November.
Surya Yalamanchili has won the Democratic primary for the 2nd District congressional seat.
With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Yalamanchili appeared to have beaten David Krikorian by 650 votes and Jim Parker by more than 4,400 votes.
The race took an unexpected turn last week, when Ohio and Hamilton County party officials condemned remarks attributed to Krikorian about Yalamanchili.
State and county Democratic officials and Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt sent letters saying that Krikorian owed an apology to Yalamanchili and the Indian-American community.(link)
At least now he can cross “best known for being a candidate on TV’s The Apprentice” off his resume.
yay. he’ll probably be crushed by mean ol’ jean schmidt, but i hope he puts up a good fight.
i look forward to the macaca moments from the schmidt campaign, though. should be fun.
Go Kentucky, I mean Southern Ohio!
Krikorian, dude, if you don’t want the “race card” used against you, don’t throw it in the pile to begin with.
With Krikovan out, does Schmidt still have the support of the big money donors from the Turkish community?
wow… how old is he? He looks quite young.
here’s a good article: http://washingtonindependent.com/83986/after-ohio-defeat-krikorian-rips-yalamanchili-for-playing-race-card
i think surya is 29 (or a late 28).
I googled him and at first glance I thought he was African, but he’s probably Tamil.
I googled him and at first glance I thought he was African, but he’s probably Tamil.
Or Mallu, or Rajasthani or Punjabi…Indians from north to south come in dark and light colors; It’d be hard to tell where someone is from in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, just on looks….
CHEERS TO Yalamanchili!!
(JEERS to Krikorian and Tigray and their ignorant-ass remarks.)
He reminds me of one of my cousins.
After watching his introduction videos and his grasp on policies, I did expect him to win the primary. Wish him the best for the general elections. Good luck Mr. Surya.
Someone was asking in another thread about his parent’s culture from India – his name suggests that they could be from Andhra and they might speak telugu.
Yalamanchili is an Andhra last name. The guy must be of Telugu origin.
As a fellow Yalamanchili (or Yelamanchili, thanks to some moron not being able to type on my dad’s immigration papers), this makes me happy. One of my law professors told me last year that I should consider legally changing my name if I ever hoped to make a run at politics.
Suck on that, Professor Jackass. And yes, it’s Telugu.
Yes, because anyone with dark skin is African or anything but Indian, and if they are Indian, they’re auto-Tamil. I just had a lovely flashback to college, when Punjabi aunties would tell me that I was “too dark” to be Indian, “You are Fiji, nah?” I’m at a conference, and yesterday, I spoke about how there’s as much diversity within the Desi diaspora as there is in the Latino and African-American communities.
Let’s keep useless, unproductive assumptions out of this thread (and off this blog). You want to talk about his candidacy, campaign or chances? Fine. His phenotype? Please, no.
Chili as in Cincinnati’s famous SkyLine Chili is a catchy name recognition device. Go Chili!!
From: Name that baby: Mom & Dad choose Isabella, Jacob
Don’t tell her about Yalamanchili!
I Still prefer “Man Chili” to just Chili, but perhaps that’s just me