Once again, Ohio's second district earns its motto: Ya can't make this stuff up. It wasn't enough that Jean Schmidt dresses in a Captain America suit while sponsoring an amendment to make flag desecration a federal crime. It wasn't enough that she became lobby-licking co-chair of the Turkish-American Congressional Caucus from a district that has practically no Turks. It wasn't enough that Phil Heimlich, son of the maneuverer, entered the 2008 GOP primary race to unseat Schmidt, and then choked.
Nnnnoooooooooo! We needed something entertaining to happen.
And so it has. Surya Yalamanchili (yes, THAT Surya Yalamanchili) has thrown his hat or whatever into the ring.
What's that you say? You have trouble recognizing the celebrity status of the 27 year-old whiz-kid who calls himself "Chili" for short? Register your complaint with CQ Politics, Roll Call, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Dayton Daily News, which all carried lead articles about how hot the Chili is, yesterday.
More if you can stand it, below the fold.
I shall not provide links, because if your search engine can't find "Surya Yalamanchili," you've got bigger problems.
I shall, however, save you some time: Yalamanchili achieved momentary stardom by being rejected on Donald Trump's reality TV show, The Apprentice. While I acknowledge that this accomplishment is one step up from being accepted by Trump, I hardly think it counts as qualification for public office. (Let's not even go to Schmidt's qualifications.)
On the Trump show, Yalamanchili did lead a "team," which had one televised "board meeting," at which Mr. Chili felt he was "ganged up on." Okay, so Rooseveltian credentials it ain't.
To be fair, young Surya has other feathers in his propeller cap. He's been named an up-and-comer by Advertising Age for his work at Procter and Gamble of Cincinnati. Specifically, the Chili man led P&G's Oil of Olay campaign for something like a couple years. (Insert your own joke here -- oil salesman, soapbox, Marilyn Chambers -- the possibilities are endless.)
The politically astute just had their aha moment. P&G is one of the top ten corporations globally, and is the number one advertiser nationally. In the 48 years of advertising ratings, P&G has never fallen below number 3, and that was only in the days when car companies had the money to compete.
P&G invented the soap opera to sell its wares. P&G is also a rock-solid Republican company. The company alone accounts for Cincinnati's reputation as the headquarters of national GOP fundraising, and every national GOP politician must come on pilgrammage to meet the muckety-moneybags at P&G. (I diaried Sarah Palin's fundraising pilgrimmage to Cincinnati when it happened.) What's behind the Taft dynasty and the Rob Portman phenomenon and the Cincinnati base of the tea-party movement? In an acronym, it's P&G.
The GOP VIPs at P&G are not happy campers these days. Steve Driehaus narrowly took the OH-01 seat for Democrats in 2008, and just cast a brave vote for the Health Care Reform bill. OH-01 includes most of the city of Cincinnati.
The remainder of Cincinnati and Hamilton County fall in OH-02, where Jean Schmidt has held the seat only by pulling one stunt after another (many chronicled by yours truly). The clock is clearly ticking on Ms. Schmidt, especially with the challenge of David Krikorian, now sailing toward the Democratic nomination. Krikorian, who garnered 18% of the vote as an Independent in 2008, now unites Independents and Democrats in a coalition that gives Republicans tremors.
Enter Surya Yalamanchili, who must "return" to Cincinnati to regain the residency status he enjoyed while employed by P&G. Mr. Chili has filed to run as an Independent, with a statement clearly lifted from Krikorian's 2008 Independent campaign (but without any of Krikorian's thought-out policy positions).
It's obvious to this commentator that Salamnchili is a P&G soapbox put-up job, designed to confuse and split the anti-Schmidt vote with Krikorian, saving Congresswingnut Schmidt yet again.
So I'm running a contest. First person to produce hard evidence of Salamanchili's actual ties to the GOP wins a gift certificate for authentic Cincinnati 5-way chili, brand of your choice, amount to be determined based on strength of the evidence.
Meanwhile, Salamanchili's entry will have the following immediate effects:
1. Todd Book's campaign for the Democratic nomination is over. Book needed to address a profound lack of name recognition in 85% of the district, with almost no money. Now that a "celebrity" candidate is sucking up the free media attention, it's a closed book for Book. Even if a nomination miracle happened for Book, it would only feed Chili's Independent campaign of railing against both party machines.
2. Chili's plagiarism of the 2008 Krikorian campaign may backfire. Chili says he won't accept PAC money -- but Krikorian has not been accepting PAC money all along. In short, all of Chili's barbs will injure Schmidt without harming Krikorian. OH-02 voters won't go for a novelty candidate like Chili, but they will listen to his anti-Schmidt message.
On the bright side, I am REALLY looking forward to the resurgence of the P&G satanic logo conspiracy theory by fundamentalist voters in OH-02. (For the uninitiated, the old P&G logo that had the man-in-the-moon with an inverted 666 in his hair curls, facing 13 stars, was widely touted as a satanic emblem by fundamentalist Christians.) Now that's OH-02 politics!
Find out more and donate to the Krikorian campaign at: http://www.krikorian2010.com/
Note: Nothing in this diary should be taken as a slight against south Asians. It's worthy of note that of five other south Asians running for congressional seats in 2010, all of them Democrats, one is an incumbent congressman, two are attorneys, and two are physicians. Mr. Chili is a failed reality TV celebrity. 'Nuff said.