Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Vogue India Features Reshma

I dropped by the Reshma 2010 headquarters earlier in the evening to make some phone calls. Usually I email at least one person in the office about a day before. This time my email went to Art. You are trying to make sure they have a phone for you, and on Sundays I get my own computer, on other days they print out names and phone numbers for me. Making phone calls is a workout experience. (Freehand Exercise: 1,000 Push-Ups, 1,000 Squats, 1,000 Crunches) You get better at it over time. People feel the excitement in your voice and they are more likely to say yes, I am voting for her.

Reshma looked like all dressed up and ready to go and I assumed she must have an event to attend somewhere. You should watch her make some of her phone calls. She really gets into the conversation. She can sound so fresh talking to each voter.

And so I am making all these phone calls after phone calls and an hour into the phone calls I notice a copy of Vogue India on the desk. Somebody had just come in and I thought maybe they brought that along. What caught my attention was Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai were on the cover of the magazine. A dot com I was part of for a little while in 1999 a year later did an event in NYC, and Aishwarya was the featured person at that event. No, I was not in town at the time. Julia Roberts has called Aishwarya the most beautiful woman in the world. My regard for Abhishek goes via Amitabh Bachchan, my very favorite actor. (Brazil And Argentina: My Choices And Those Of My Favorite Actor) But Abhishek has done some great work in his own right. (Saavn's Great Business Model For Movies)



There is no American equivalent to the Gandhi family of India. There is no American equivalent to Amitabh, although Al Pacino comes close. In terms of what they mean to the Indian imagination.

Ends up Reshma is featured in the same issue of Vogue India, the issue for July. It is a great write up. I kept thinking, we need to scan these three pages and circulate them around.


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Organized Labor Has No Business Endorsing Maloney

Democratic Party logoImage via Wikipedia
Obama Has No Business Kissing Maloney

Organized labor in this city has major business pounding the pavements for the winner of the Democratic primary, but organized labor has no business throwing its weight into the wrong hat for the Democratic primary.

Reshma Saujani is the daughter of political refugees. Talk about starting from scratch. She went to public schools all her life. The working class families of this city might be able to relate to that.

To Mansion Maloney, all labor issues are abstract.

I am a free marketeer because I believe in democracy. There can be no democracy without a free market economy. A healthy American economy is one where Main Street and Wall Street are no longer working at cross purposes. You need someone like Reshma Saujani who can claim allegiance to both sides to be able to bring about that healthy relationship. It is not one or the other. We need both. We need entrepreneurs and we need workers. We need Main Street and we need Wall Street. We need strong public schools so that it does not matter where your starting line in life is.

In Reshma Saujani families of organized labor have a living, breathing embodiment of someone they can talk about to their kids as an example of someone who has achieved regardless of what her starting point in life was.

In this city of immigrants, Reshma Saujani is the ultimate immigrant. And organized labor has to claim her candidacy as its own.

Maloney, over the years, has voted the way organized labor would expect a Democrat to vote. But that makes her a checkbox Democrat. That does not make her a leader. Reshma Saujani is a Democrat. She too is going to vote like a Democrat on issues of particular interest to labor. But she is a leader. She is going to come up with the new thoughts for a new century. Organized labor needs to change with the times and stay relevant.

John Liu: Mayor Of NYC: 2013
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