Image via WikipediaCarolyn Maloney has been a Democrat. She has consistently voted the party line. But to say Maloney is a Democrat in the context of the September 14 primary is to insinuate Reshma Saujani is perhaps not a Democrat. That would be a lie. To point out that Maloney has voted the party line is to imply that perhaps Reshma has not been, or will not be a loyal Democrat. That amounts to slander.
No, Maloney did not wave a magic wand and turn a Republican district into a Democratic district. She did not benefit from her extraordinary political skills or rousing oratory in 1992, she benefited from redistricting that added big chunks of Democratic territory to District 14, namely Astoria and Roosevelt Island. So the suggestion that if Maloney is not on the ballot in November then somehow the dams will burst and the seat will go to some guy called Brumberg, that is, well, Baloney. Reshma is going to have an easy victory in November.
The biggest things people say about Maloney is that she has consistently voted the party line. They do that because there are no bigger things to say about Maloney. She has no national stature. She is a City Council woman who ended up in Congress by happenstance. She won because of redistricting and she has kept the seat by not allowing for any primary opponents. Her 18 years of reign have been a sham. The dirty guys on her payroll have kicked off all of her primary opponents over the decades. They tried the same with Reshma Saujani, but they found they instead have a fight on their hands. Because Reshma Saujani is a fighter.
To vote the party line on health care reform, and then to try and take credit for health care reform in a Democratic primary is dishonest. You can say that in November, but not in September. Reshma Saujani is a Democrat who is already dreaming in terms of Health Care Reform 2.0.
Maloney voted the party line on Wall Street reform. Reshma has been for Wall Street reform since day one. Her father lost a big chunk of his 401K to the mess that made the Maloney family 20 million dollars. Now tell me, who is Wall Street's candidate? Maloney showed up with the sheriff after the looting was over. The curious thing is that she was part of the looting. She watered down regulations in 1999. When people talk about the hypocrisy in Washington DC, they are talking about Maloney. You loot the people and then you show up on stage claiming you are their savior. But the people are smart. They are going to connect the dots on September 14, and they are going to blame Maloney for the Great Recession.
Things get much worse on gender. It is like saying because Al Sharpton is a bonafide civil rights leader - which he is - and so you should not vote for Barack Obama for president. They are both black, but they are apples and oranges. Carolyn Maloney and Reshma Saujani are both women but they are apples and oranges.
They say Maloney Baloney passed anti rape legislation. That really gets under my shirt because that is like suggesting if Reshma Saujani ends up in Congress, she is going to pass pro rape legislation, or something. Rape is a heinous crime, and anti rape law enforcement has to be funded to the teeth, and I am glad the US Congress took some steps in the 2000s. But why not the 1990s? Why not the 1980s? Why did Maloney wait a full decade and a half before she worked on anti rape legislation? That is the real question.
This mediocre, reliable, token woman Democrat reminds me of Charlie Rangel. Charlie Rangel is that black dude that white folks choose to be nice to. Charlie, I am going to show up for your birthday party, I just want you to keep saying race is no longer an issue, or at least not between us.
Men on Capitol Hill have been hoodwinking Carolyn Maloney. They say, Carolyn, so here's 10 million dollars for anti rape legislation, now please make this gender thing go away please, enough.
Charlie Rangel is not my idea of progress on race. Carolyn Maloney is not my idea of progress on gender. The women on the East Side need to wake up. They live in a city whose local news is national news, global news. The choice they will make on September 14 will reverberate around the country, around the world. This is not just about the East Side.
Maloney is an abject failure on all counts. But I don't really blame her. I suspect she was born mediocre. She did her stint. Now say bye bye Maloney Baloney.
Bill Clinton has also managed to put a few tens of billions into the Global South. That is like Maloney putting tens of millions into anti rape legislation. There are three billion needy people in the Global South. 20 billion from Bill Clinton and 40 billion from Bill Gates are drops in the ocean. I want Reshma to figure out a way to pump a trillion dollars in Wall Street for-profit money into global microfinance. Now that would not be a drop, but a full bucket.
Carolyn Maloney needs to retire already.
Baloney Maloney will tell you she has authored 70 bills in Congress. What she will not tell you is only three of those have actually passed, one was to do with renaming some post office. So if you one day find yourself at a Carolyn Maloney Post Office, now you know how that happened.
I don't really know how to explain this, but I am going to try.
All my slights, my hurts, all the topsy turvies along my career path - some days I feel like I have not even started on one yet - all of them can be encapsulated in 500 years of world history. Beyond 500 years I draw a blank. When you go back more than 500 years, I come across stories of all sorts of glorious kings in my part of the world, some of whom were supposedly great, but they were still kings, the arrangement still was feudal. But you hang on to the threads regardless. They are dead and gone.
But for women that span has got to be 10,000 years, at least 10,000 years.
At some level I was really torn in 2007 and 2008. I wished I did not have to choose between the idea of the first black president and the first woman president, I wished I did not have to choose between the two super duper candidates. But I did throw in my lot with Barack, and I did do the best I could for him. The one solace was that perhaps this was the future. Women and black men could compete for the top most jobs and there was not much angst among the masses. This will perhaps feel normal down the line as well, I thought. I took solace in that thought.
Here were two out and out outstanding individuals. And they were both running for president. A more powerful political office has never been designed ever. This was a big deal.
I have worked hard to talk in terms of The New Woman for September 14. I have done it because I concluded early on that that was what was going to be the biggest reason for victory. The techies and brownies will pad the victory margins, but it is the women on the East Side who will have to wake up to give Reshma her much deserved victory on September 14.
And victory it shall be. I smell it. It's near. It's about to happen.
Image via WikipediaOne question Maloney has consistently asked is as to why Reshma can't run for City Council first like Maloney did. Why does a run for Congress have to be Reshma's first run for office? That question is a primary theme in a Village Voice hack article by Wayne Barrett.
Why did not Bill Gates go work at IBM first and acquire some experience? Why did he start a company? Beats me. Beats Maloney.
You can expect dumb people like Carolyn Maloney to pose a question like this one. If she were smart, she would have posed a question like this in 1999: Why am I voting for Wall Street deregulation when this could cause a mega recession? If she were smart she would have posed questions like these in the early 2000s. Why am I voting for the Iraq War? Why am I voting for the Patriot Act? Why am I voting to make life easy for oil companies and hard for the ordinary people? If she were smart.
There is a very, extremely direct relationship between Carolyn Maloney asking as to why Reshma can't run for City Council first and her absolutely refusing to debate Reshma Saujani in a series of TV debates. This woman lacks fundamental respect for the democratic process. This woman has no respect whatsoever for the voters. Her personal net worth of 20 million dollars blinds her.
Someone running for a political office as a career move is at the low end. At the high end someone runs for office because it is a calling. For Reshma Saujani running for Congress is a calling. The Great Recession is now. This country can't afford for Reshma to lose now and run again in 2012 and win. That might make sense for Reshma's personal political career, but it makes no sense for the district, for the city and for the country. Reshma has to win now, Reshma has to win this very first time.
The biggest reason Reshma can't run for City Council before she runs for Congress? Carolyn Maloney is not her role model. She has never mentioned or hinted to me that Carolyn Maloney might be her role model. I am 100% positive Carolyn Maloney is not Reshma Saujani's role model.
After Bill Clinton was done with Yale, he went to Arkansas and ran for Congress. That dude knew Arkansas like the back of his hand. I am sure he could have found a City Council seat to run for somewhere in those woods.
Reshma Saujani and Carolyn Maloney don't even live in the same political city, let alone the same political neighborhood. Maloney, you are out of your league in comparing yourself to Reshma Saujani. You are Al Sharpton. Reshma is Barack Obama. Al Sharpton is a good guy, but he never was Barack Obama's role model.
Image by springhill2008 via FlickrReshma Saujani is a remarkable, remarkable candidate. District 14 is lucky to have her contest. New York City is lucky she did not move back to Chicago like that other ma - Obama - after she got done with law school.
She started with a few different national constituencies.
The Indian Americans are the most successful ethnic group in America measured by per capita family income. An average Indian American family makes twice as much as an average white family, for example. Indians tend to have a strong sense of heritage and family values. There seems to be major onus on education, hard work and thrift. Reshma Saujani has been the number one fundraiser in that community for the Democratic Party for a few election cycles now. She has been minting money for the party like crazy. That is even more remarkable for me to watch personally because fundraising has never been one of my strengths.
When she first launched her campaign, her first 50,000 dollars came from what she calls the "auntie network," these South Asian women spread across the country who see in her the fulfillment of all that they perhaps were not able to do. They nurtured loving families, but they perhaps did not have maxed out, fulfilling careers, and they want to relive that fulfillment through Reshma's personal success.
And when I talk tech, I am not just referring to dot coms and dot bombs. By tech I also mean clean tech, bio tech and nano tech. I am talking about the jobs, companies and industries of tomorrow. Many techies I have heard talk about Reshma start out by expressing disbelief. But she speaks our language! She understands our subculture! She is on with our issues! Her appeal is bi-coastal. Actually, sad to note, but the big tech honchos on the West Coast are more excited about her than the big tech honchos on the East Coast. That is yet another sign the West Coast is ahead of the East Coast when it comes to tech.
And there are young professionals of all stripes who are taken by her sheer excellence. She is so good at what she does, you don't have to be in politics to admire her moves. Money, message and organization are the three fundamentals in politics. And she is excellent at all three.
But the constituency that is the most latent, that is the most waiting to erupt in association with the Reshma Saujani name is a symbol that I have taken to calling The New Woman.
If Barack Obama is The New Black Man, Reshma Saujani is The New Woman. The New Woman wants to, is able to, and takes equality for granted. If you think about it, equality is not really that complicated. The woman wants her education. The woman wants her career. The woman wants her health. The woman wants her life.
Equality was always meant to be something unremarkable like the landscape. It is there. You should be able to take for granted. You should not have to put together the beautiful landscape. But it has been the sorry trajectory of history that equality has been a big deal.
The New Black Man gave me culture shocks when he was someone who hardly ever talked about race. He was not being shy, he was not being diffident, what was he doing? Ends up his style is to instead pump billions into inner city schools. Grandstanding was Jesse Jackson.
You necessarily have to go past Al Sharpton to get to Barack Obama. You necessarily have to get past Carolyn Maloney to get to Reshma Saujani. That is the nature of the beast.
The biggest thing that is happening on September 14 is that this country is birthing The New Woman. Barack Obama was still around and he was still a wonderful, wonderful dude before the Democratic Convention in 2004. But the world had to wait until that convention.
There are two kinds of people, people who will have known Reshma Saujani in person or name before September 14, and those that will hear her name only after that. Which kind are you? (The First Time I Heard The Obama Name)
She is a South Asian, fine. And she breathes tech, sure she does. But the big deal about Reshma Saujani is that she is The New Woman.
I think I left more than 100 voice mails during my Sunday stint at the Reshma 2010 headquarters earlier today. This past week I have been trying to put extra hours into phone calls. I showed up on Tuesday, I showed up on Saturday.
People on the Upper East Side seem to be like me. They don't pick up the phone. They n-e-v-e-r pick up the phone. But I was trying to imagine it was a new voter each time, and so leaving the same voice mail over and over again is still a unique experience each time, but you can take that only so far before your brain goes numb. And I was trying to have fun with the wording of the voice mail. I think the final version went something like this.
"Hi. My name is Paramendra. I was one of Barack Obama's earliest and strongest supporters in New York City. Today I am calling on behalf of Reshma Saujani. Reshma is running for Congress and you can learn more about her at her website online at reshma2010.com, that would be r-e-s-h-m-a-2-0-1-0-dot-com. I strongly urge you to vote for her on September 14 in the Democratic primary. Like I said, Reshma is running for Congress. She is running against Carolyn Maloney. Carolyn Maloney is like Al Sharpton, Reshma Saujani is like Barack Obama. I think you should vote for someone who is like Barack Obama, and that is Reshma. Thank you."
But at some point I ran out of steam for the day. I guess there is a limit to how many voice mails you can leave in one day, in one sitting. After each hour I would get up and go into a corner and do some push ups. To those who looked at me curiously I said, "Making phone calls is a physical act."
Your mouth runs dry, you drink water. You take your restroom breaks. You take a break to go stare at the wall. That is when I found out there are so many community events scheduled for the month.
I am going to drastically cut down on the phone calls now. I am going to focus more on the digital activism part, and the meeting people in person part. Blogging is the big part of my digital activism, but not the only part. And I am really, really looking forward to meeting people in person. Like really.
I think as we move closer to September 14, there are going to be more and more news articles and blog posts about Reshma and my blogging activity is going to have to keep pace with that.
There is this Upper East Side newspaper called Our Town. They had an article a few days back. I replied to it at my blog, and then posted a link to my reply post in the comments section of that article. I see me doing more of that. I might reach more voters that way than by making phone calls.
So today for my phone calls my point person was Paul. Here's my Paul story. In Kentucky once someone asked me,"Can we call you Paul?"
"No, you can't call me Paul," I replied.
I have been showing up for the Reshma events wearing the red, white and blue Reshma 2010 shirt and the rest black. I think I will stick to that until September 14. But there is a dress nazi inside of me that is itching to wear a few different shirts.
I don't care if you are a firefighter and I don't care that 9/11 happened, if you are a sexist pig, you are a sexist pig, and I would take that exact same logic to so called progressives acting sexist towards someone like Sarah Palin. What is sexist is sexist. Your wearing the progressive label does not change that. And stop cashing on 9/11 that way. That is wrong and disrespectful. Palin has taken plenty of wrong stands, like in Arizona. Got to beat her on ideas. Acting sexist can not be in the arsenal.
Reshma Saujani has already overtaken Hillary at this blog, and she is closing in fast on Obama. I don't see me renaming this blog in Reshma's name, I would not want to slight the most powerful man on earth, (Why I Am Pressing The Like Button On Al Sharpton) but if I were to rename it, it would be inspired by some Meryl Streep movie. (Reshma Aur Shera) Do you have any suggestions? Or I could rename it Pappu, my family's name for me.
Before word gets out - and word does get out fast in this information age of ours - that I put out a blog post comparing Al Sharpton to Carolyn Maloney, (Carolyn Maloney: The Al Sharpton Of Gender Relations) and somebody prints out the post and hands it over to Al Sharpton and Al Sharpton gets all offended, I wanted to put out a new post making it absolutely clear that I admire Al Sharpton, I always have.
Reverend - he is one, is he not; I don't want to be seen confusing him with Jesse Jackson (I am not one of those who don't know Africa is not a country) who I have been honored to meet in person (I have seen Sharpton in person although never got a chance to shake his hand) - Sharpton is a pretty cool guy, if you think about it. (Jesse Jackson On Martin Luther King Boulevard)
When I got to see him up close, I remember thinking, I am not sure I want that on my head, but the guy sure has fancy hair.
He ran for president four years before Obama did. People say Jesse Jackson running for president paved the way for Obama. But those people forget that Sharpton also helped pave the way. Granted Jackson is bigger than Sharpton - one is like Gandhi, another like Nehru - but that does not make Sharpton insignificant by comparison. He does deserve a small mention.
When Sharpton ran for president, he was often considered the most articulate of all candidates. What failed his talents was a lack of field organization, a lesson Obama totally took to heart four years later. Would you dispute that?
Sharpton is a go to guy. People who run for office in this town routinely seek out his advice, especially on issues of race relations, but also on bread and butter issues in general.
He has had a political career, he is one of the most well known community activists across the country, and I think he also owns a radio station, which would make him a media guy. I know about that radio station part because Hillary would call in asking for his support when she was running for president and the Reverend would tactfully tell her he was still studying the candidates and weighing his options. That is how I knew he was secretly on our side. That was a time when blacks across the city and the country were falling like flies into the Clinton camp giving us Obama people the scare: if Barack can't even get black people, how will he get white people? Al Sharpton displayed much grace under that pressure. At some level I feel about him the way I feel about Caroline Kennedy. They were there for us Barack people when it counted.
I remember, my candidate Obama showed up for an event in Harlem at the Apollo Theater in Fall 2007. He had dinner with the decidedly neutral Sharpton who after that dinner told the press people, "This black brother eats soul food. How bad can he be?" I could not have come up with that quote if I tried.
Once in a while the Reverend is known to get agitated, but you would too if you had been black in America the past so many decades. We all have a little steam to blow.
He is one of the few liberals known to always be ready to debate Bill O'Reilly. That is a positive quality.
Image via WikipediaCarolyn Maloney has been a Democrat. She has consistently voted the party line. But to say Maloney is a Democrat in the context of the September 14 primary is to insinuate Reshma Saujani is perhaps not a Democrat. That would be a lie. To point out that Maloney has voted the party line is to imply that perhaps Reshma has not been, or will not be a loyal Democrat. That amounts to slander. 
Image via WikipediaOne question Maloney has consistently asked is as to why Reshma can't run for City Council first like Maloney did. Why does a run for Congress have to be Reshma's first run for office? That question is a primary theme in a Village Voice hack article by Wayne Barrett. 
Image via WikipediaMaloney Should Skip Radio Debate And Create Jobs For An Hour Instead
Image by springhill2008 via FlickrReshma Saujani is a remarkable, remarkable candidate. District 14 is lucky to have her contest. New York City is lucky she did not move back to Chicago like that other ma - Obama - after she got done with law school. 
Image via Wikipedia
Image by @superamit via Flickr
