But not everyone shares the dream. In June, the Zurich newspaper Tages-Anzeiger featured an article with the headline “Into the Luxury Hotel with a Gas Cooker,” noting that “in some hotels an entire caste of guests is no longer desired: the Indians.” ...... The article catalogued the complaints of hotel managers: guests who cook curry dishes on camping stoves in their rooms; guests who use bath oils that blacken tubs; guests who book for a husband and wife, only to show up with the entire family. ...... In Engelberg, where a visitor is more likely to encounter a woman in a sari than hear the clang of a cowbell, some European tourists are unsettled. ..... “I can imagine that a German or a Dutchman might not imagine Switzerland this way,” Mr. Casanova said. “They want the Swiss pastoral idyll.”
Getting on Hardball is the next best thing to getting Maloney to debate you for all the exposure, but I lost a little respect for Chris Matthews when I watched the clip when he had Reshma on his show.
Basically he was saying to Reshma, you are Wall Street's candidate. And he read from a list of her donors. Many of them were people working for the various banks in New York City. Well, Chris, have you heard of the Upper East Side? There is a reason Democrats across the country come to the Upper East Side of New York City to raise money. There is a reason Obama and Pelosi had a fundraiser on the Upper East Side a few months back. There are a lot of moneyed people living on the Upper East Side. And that Upper East Side is part of District 14, the district Reshma is seeking to represent in Congress. If people in your district are making individual contributions to you, where is the mud in the picture?
The real story is as to how she has managed to raise all this money. During the last quarter of 2009, Reshma outraised Maloney two to one. She is obviously tapping into a hunger for leadership that a lot of Upper East Siders feel. Maloney comes across as vacuous to many of them.
Maloney on the other hand has been taking PAC money from Wall Street. T-h-a-t is Wall Street's candidate. Reshma has not taken a dime in PAC money. She has had hundreds of people who have given the legal max. But she also has hundreds of people donating to her small sums of 20 dollars and 60 dollars and 200 dollars. This has been a very grassroots effort. And if a house party in Astoria is grassroots, so is a house party on the Upper East Side.
Maloney has not only taken gobs of PAC money from Wall Street, she just might have crossed the line recently when she out and out organized a fundraiser among Wall Street people when at the same time she was supposed to be shaping Wall Street reform. There might have been an ethics violation. Where is the outrage? Where is the investigation?
And then there is the policy part. Reshma has been for reform for Wall Street from the very beginning. She stands with Obama on this one. And she feels like she is also standing for her constituents who work on Wall Street. Because only a reformed Wall Street has a bright future.
And then there is the issue of just knowing what you are talking about. Having worked on Wall Street for a few years after having earned degrees from three of the fanciest schools in the country - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Harvard, Yale Law - when Reshma talks Wall Street reform, that is like a doctor talking medical issues. I trust Reshma on Wall Street reform like I trust Dr. Howard Dean on health care reform. Dean actually is a medical doctor. He would know a thing or two about health care. Don't you think? Maloney has none of the expertise but all the hot air on the topic. All of a sudden I am supposed to think Maloney is a woman of the people? Give me a break.
Reshma's Wall Street experience is a plus. That makes her informed.
She is the national leader to the tech sector. There her appeal is bi-coastal. Her appeal is national.
Maloney takes Wall Street PAC money, and Reshma does not, and she is the Wall Street's candidate? If we are going to blame Reshma for the Great Recession, we might as well blame her for the earthquake in Haiti. That is so misplaced that I am going to call it demonization. Maloney, on the other hand, can partly be blamed for the Gulf Oil Spill. She owns oil stocks. Don't tell me that did not shape her motivations when she voted the way she voted on oil over the past decade. Follow the damn money.
There is a term in Hindi: safed jhooth. Or, white lie. When someone looks straight in the eye, and says something utterly untrue, that is a white lie. Calling Reshma Wall Street's puppet candidate is a white lie.
And then there are people who make it sound like her having gone to Harvard and Yale is a bad thing. Obama went to Harvard. Clinton went to Yale. Reshma went to both. Look at it that way, because that is the only right way to look at it.
So stop demonizing Reshma Saujani and start instead asking as to why Maloney refuses to debate her. Debating is the essence of democracy. The people deserve an open discussion. The two candidates need to tell the people in the district as to where they stand on all the issues.
Reshma is not Wall Street's candidate. Reshma is a candidate for a district that a lot of Wall Street workers live in. Reshma is a candidate for Wall Street reform. Reshma is the only candidate in this race who has not taken PAC money. Stop spreading the white lie that Reshma is Wall Streets' candidate.
It is a sorry day for democracy when a reputed journalist like Chris Matthews repeats a white lie.
And you want me to tell you how Reshma Saujani and Carolyn Maloney are different from each other? Where do you want me to begin? I'd like to start with the brains part.
If this is the Reshma Saujani we are going to see on TV during her debates with Carolyn Maloney - i-f there are debates that is, and that is a big i-f, Maloney has been running scared, can you blame her? (Debating Is "Stunt" In A Maloney Democracy) - we win hands down. This woman is dynamo. This woman is brilliant. This woman is cutting edge. I have said this before and I will say this again, this woman is going to be hitting the national headlines on September 15.
Carolyn Maloney, dove, hawk or chicken? Dove on Wall Street reform. She has been taking all the Wall Street PAC money, has she not? Hawk on the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. I knew she was from North Jesse Helms Carolina, did you? Chicken on debating Reshma.
Carolyn Maloney, dove, hawk or chicken? All of the above.
Ugh, it's been a few weeks since my last Reshma event. There has been the World Cup. And there have been some stuff I have needed to work on. But I hope to stay in touch with the campaign, and I hope to keep volunteering.
My favored way of volunteering is digital. When people google up her name, I want them to come across my blog. So my blogging for Reshma 2010 is a gift that will keep giving. And I want to show up at the campaign office here and there, pick up some literature and go work the nearest subway stop. And, of course, I want to show up for all the key events. You got to party. When you are having fun is when you know you are winning.
The Democratic Party is on its way to an intellectual bankruptcy by the time Obama's eight years are over. Reshma Saujani is the party's insurance against that bankruptcy.
Carolyn Maloney is too "ordinary" - as described in the Washington Post article - to keep representing District 14. District 14 functions as the ATM for the entire Democratic Party, it is a solidly Democratic district. You need a Super Star Congressperson to represent this district. Reshma is that Super Star. She is dazzling. Check out the video above.
The idea that Reshma Saujani is Wall Street's candidate was a lie six months ago, and it is a lie today. She does recognize the fact that Wall Street is an integral part of the New York economy, and indeed the national and the global economy. Many people who work on Wall Street live in her district, many of them have made individual contributions to her. You have to wonder. She is the stronger between the two for Wall Street reform, and still so many people on Wall Street support her. Why? Because the truth is a lot of people on Wall Street themselves are for reform. They realize Wall Street needs to reinvent itself if it is going to see robust days ahead. And that is Reshma's point. Work for meaningful reform. But stop demonizing Wall Street wholescale. Reform the bad aspects, keep the good aspects, and let's see brighter days ahead. Carolyn Maloney is slow. She is thick. When Maloney talks Wall Street reform, she does not know what she is talking about. When Reshma talks Wall Street reform, that is like a doctor talking medical issues. She knows what she is talking about. She has the vocabulary.
Get the debates on, yo! I think Maloney should do it, a debate a week. It is like dipping your toe into cold water. It is daunting, but you can do it. Maloney, you can do it. Let's get the game on.
