Mainstream media is sitting up and taking notice of the political activism
Mainstream media is sitting up and taking notice of the political activism of young and ambitious Indian Americans, born and brought up in the United States. From The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, to the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek, a variety of publications have carried reports about the number of Indians in the running this year. Newsweek put South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Randhawa Haley, a Republican, on the front page of its latest issue.
The New York Times examined her background and ran a fulsome interview, as it did with Reshma Saujani (D), a candidate for Congress from New York’s 14th district.
Major national television channels and local media are tracking several candidates.
Should Haley win on Election Day, the 38-year-old will be the second Indian-American governor of a state after Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, and the first woman to occupy South Carolina Governor’s mansion.
Overall, eight Indian Americans, many considered shoo-ins, are contesting races across the country.
The candidates range in age from 27 to 45. A slew of Democratic candidates are campaigning for congressional seats in New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio and California. Saujani, who is trying to dislodge longtime Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Louisiana’s Ravi Sangisetty (D) still have to face party primaries, though Sangisetty, 27, remains unopposed so far.
The Louisiana primary is scheduled for Aug. 28 and the New York primary is set for Sept. 14. Those who have won their primaries are Dr. Manan Trivedi (D), 36, an Iraq war veteran, who is running from Pennsylvania’s 6th District; Raj Goyle (D-KS), 35, a Kansas state representative who is running from the 4th District; Surya Yalamanchili (D), 28, an Ohio resident better known for his stint on Donald Tump’s “The Apprentice” on NBC, who is running from the 2nd District; and Dr. Ami Bera (D), 45, a physician, who is running from California’s 3rd District.
Trivedi, Goyle and Bera have so impressed party leaders that they have been named in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue Program that offers select candidates financial, communications, grassroots and strategic support.
Also in the running is Kamala Devi Harris (D), 45, the district attorney of San Francisco, who is seeking the attorney general’s office in California. She sailed to her Democratic Party nomination defeating former Facebook executive Chris Kelly handily despite the millions he poured into his campaign from his own pocket. Harris now faces off against Republican Steve Cooley (R), currently Los Angeles district attorney.
Most of these young politicians seem to be invigorated by the proverbial “heat and dust” of national politics. When the dust finally settles after Election Day, there might emerge another Indian-American governor, a congresswoman, or a congressman or two.
By Ela Dutt, News India Times, 16 July 2010.