Singh For Senatorhip :)

[S1ngh]

WOHOOOOO

Another Singh with turban announced that he would run for SENATOR seat in 2004 :D Dr. Kutharia is very brilliant guy who made many Multi-Million companies from scratch. He is from chicago and will be running for senate next year.

This thread will be pinned here just to give latest information about this campaign and Hopefully this time we will have a Keshdhari Singh in Senate :D

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History

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Dr. Saund - Became the first Asian Origin Congressman in 50's

Ravi Singh - Ran for Govt' seat from Chicago couple of years ago

Dr. Sukhmander Singh - Ran for HOR about year ago from california

NOW Dr. Kutharia is running for 2004 Senate seat from Chicago..

[S1ngh]

WE need 100-200 volunteers (Im already in, im gonna do marketing stuff about Singh's Campaign from california).. Anyone In? B)

I know we have Gurpreet kaur, neena kaur and some others from that singh's state.. Anyone wanna volunteer for singh campaign, just holla me by email/pm.. and i will fwd you the platform of the singh's race..

Stay in Chardi Kala

[Son of Guru Gobind Singh Ji]

Can you provide more info. on what help u need with the campaing? And what all we can do to make this compaign special?

[S1ngh]

I posted the ideas from Chirinjeev and suggestions from at Selfless Sewa.. Pls check it there Singho

"Mission Possible"

[Deep Singh]

Veer as you may know...i do not even live in USA/CANADA...i live in Norway..but if there is any thing like what i can do from here...please tell me...i will not refuse.....

Deep....

[nanosecond]

Oak Brook businessman seeks Senate

BY SHAMUS TOOMEY Daily Herald Staff Writer

Posted 7/16/03

With the six high-tech companies he helped create valued at more than $1 billion, Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria knows how to pounce on opportunity.

A non-practicing physician from Oak Brook, Kathuria began amassing his fortune with a wireless phone company in India, and since then has done everything from working with Sweden on health care issues to helping form the company that put civilian Dennis Tito in space.

And now Kathu-ria, 38, sees another opportunity — this time in the battle to replace U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, an Inverness Republican who opted against a second term.

Kathuria is running as a Republican in the 2004 Senate primary, a race becoming increas-ingly crowded on both sides of the aisle.

“This is a strange race. The incumbent is not running and there are no favorites,” said Kathuria, the 1983 valedictorian at Downers Grove North High School. “It’s the perfect opportunity for someone to run.”

He is pledging to spend $6 million or more of his own money, making him an attractive candidate for the Republican Party. And, for a party desperate to broaden its appeal in an increasingly Democratic state, Kathuria has more than just money and drive to offer.

If elected, he would become the Senate’s first Sikh and its first member born in India. Kathuria emigrated to the area with his parents when he was 8 months old.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Judy Baar Topinka “wants to rebuild the Republican party,” Kathuria said. “She’s been talking about reaching out to ethnic groups and minorities. I think America’s changing. If th

e Republi-can Party really wants to grow its traditional base … what better way than to elect me to the Sen-ate?”

Topinka, also the state treasurer, has met with Kathuria and is encouraged by his candidacy, party spokesman Jason Gerwig said.

“The chairman thinks he’s a very intelligent man, a self-starter,” he said. “He wants to give some-thing back to the people of Illinois. … It will be good for the party and for the race.”

Topinka wanted former Gov. Jim Edgar to succeed Fitzgerald and passed on a chance to run herself when Edgar declined. Since then, a host of Republicans have flocked to the race or shown interest, including: former invest-ment banker Jack Ryan of Wilmette, businessmen Andy McKenna of Glenview, John Cox of Chicago and Jim Oberweis of Aurora, state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger of Elgin and RTA Chairman Thomas McCracken of Darien.

Kathuria is hoping the crowded field will split enough votes for him to emerge as the winner. To do so, he’s also hoping his back-ground will bring him non-traditional GOP voters.

He knows he’ll be talking about his religion on the campaign trail to help people understand who he is. But he wants Illinois voters to see past his thick beard and traditional Sikh tur-ban, and see him as an America who is conservative by nature and well-schooled on a variety of issues, par-ticularly health care and small busi-ness development.

He also has a self-deprecating side that he’s not afraid to show. When explaining what got him into the high-tech trade instead of the medical field, he ad-mits it was for a girl.

“A friend in business school said (in 1993), ‘Let’s go to India and start a mobile carrier,’æ” he said. “The truth of the story is … I was madly in love with her but she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I figured if we went to India, she might not know anyone else and she might fall in love with me.”

That dream didn’t work out, and Kathuria is not married. But the company he created later merged with another and sold for

$2.9 bil-lion. Now he’s working on his latest dream.

“It would really send a strong message to America,” he said

[nanosecond]

Vote for a turban and a beard

Jul 24th 2003 | CHICAGO

From The Economist print edition

The Sikh knocking at the door of the Senate

The new Sikher

WITH Lake Michigan sparkling in the distance and long beards flapping in the evening breeze, they clutched their turbans or ties and vowed to unite behind Chirinjeev Singh Kathuria. An assembly of Sikhs and Hindus and even a token Muslim set aside their differences and turned out on July 22nd on the roof of a posh downtown high-rise to endorse the first American from the Indian subcontinent ever to run for the Senate.

It is not going to be easy for Mr Kathuria, a millionaire Sikh businessman and a Republican. He remembers the insults he faced in airliners and on street corners after the terrorist attacks of 2001, when his Sikh turban and beard got him mistaken for a Muslim. He still carefully keeps an American flag pinned to his lapel.

There is also the fact that he is a Republican. Grover Norquist, a Republican anti-tax campaigner with influential friends in the White House, claims that “Indian-Americans are natural Republicans and natural conservatives.” They are on the whole well-educated and well-to-do; they respect family values, and like working for themselves. Bobby Jindal, a young Indian-American, is the leading Republican candidate for the governorship of Louisiana. Still, about 70% of them voted Democrat in the 2000 election.

The Indian-American community more than doubled in size in the 1990s, and now totals over 1.6m. That makes it America's third-largest Asian group. Mr Norquist and Karl Rove, George Bush's main strategist, have urged their party to

embrace Muslim-Americans and Americans with roots in other parts of Asia. At the moment all seven Asian-Americans in Congress—five in the House and two senators—are Democrats.

Chicago

United States

Republicans, Democrats

In Illinois, Mr Kathuria faces long odds in the competition to succeed the retiring Republican senator, Peter Fitzgerald. He is one of five Republicans who are already running for the party's nomination in the primary election in eight months' time. The fortune he built in business, while impressive, makes him just another millionaire Republican. A lot of people, if they mention him at all, stumble over his name. And Illinois includes not only the ethnic smorgasbord of Chicago but also a lot of farmers who wouldn't know a Sikh if he landed in their cornfields.

Mr Kathuria, who is still only 38, remains undeterred. He is looking for votes not just among the state's Indian-Americans (there are only about 125,000 of them) but among other Asian-Americans, who altogether make up 3.4% of the population. He hopes that voters will remember him for his beard and turban when his rivals are still a bit of a blur.

But a striking appearance and the immigrant vote will not suffice in the rough-and-tumble world of Illinois politics. Noting that conservatives usually dominate that state's Republican primary, Mr Kathuria announced his candidacy at a conservative forum. He sticks to the general conservative line—low taxes and close-knit families—and drapes himself in the cloak of the American dream: an immigrant made good.

With medical and business degrees from Brown and Stanford universities, a period working on international health issues and a series of business ventures, he can claim some experience. He founded part of an internet firm that went public for $2.9 billion in 2000. He was involved with MirCorp, the company that sent Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, into orbit in 2001. Mr Kathur

ia, who himself applied to be an astronaut, says he too will go into space one day. An ever-hopeful bachelor, he once dated a former Miss India.

Enough to win the wary hearts of Illinois's voters? Mr Kathuria is more than a colourful sideshow. He talks fluently to farmers about the global agricultural market and tells small businessmen that he understands their problems. He has ideas on health-care policy and space-based defence. The state's Republican Party has not yet backed any particular candidate. The White House's influence could matter. Does Mr Rove really want to chase the Asian vote? Or is it too risky to leave a crucial Senate seat to a first-time candidate whose nickname is Baboo?

[nanosecond]

He launched space tourism, he’s ready to take off on US Senate trip

Asian-Americans need a voice, says Chirinjeev Kathuria. Post 9/11, US media notes his ‘turban and beard’

S. P. Singh

Chandigarh, August 4: The last time cameras chased Dr Chirinjeev Kathuria was when MirCorp, a private company in which he is a key investor, sent the world’s first civilian tourist to space.

At $20 million, it was a rather costly journey for Dennis Tito, a trip which Kathuria himself wants to undertake when the cost comes down.

‘‘Thankfully, it was a two-way ticket,’’ Kathuria jokes. ‘‘We plan to revive operations, and send more people to space. MirCorp is definitely on,’’ Kathuria told The Indian Express from Chicago as he prepares for an ambitious journey.

This one is to where no Indian-American has gone before — the US Senate. The turbaned Indian-born billionaire has announced his intention to run for the Republican ticket from Illinois. ‘‘We will make history,’’ Kathuria says.

Media is already hot on his heels: Kathuria has featured in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times Magazine, CNN, The Today Show and BBC. The latest issue of The Economist carries a feature on The Sikh knocking at the door of the Senate.

The nearly 1.6-million Indian-American community is now America’s third largest Asian group. But it has never had a representative in the Senate, not from the entire Indian subcontinent.

Kathuria now plans to sell himself as the ultimate immigrant dream achieved with Republican values — apart from MirCorp, he set up X-Stream Networks Inc, which was one of the fastest-growin

g ISPs in the world.

Kathuria’s Medical Oasis Inc is positioned to become a premier chain of diagnostic imaging centres and has negotiated equipment vendor financing agreement for $100 million with Siemens. ‘‘Any success I owe, I owe to America’s values,’’ he says.

‘‘Winston Churchill said if you are 20 and not a liberal you have no heart, and if you are 40 and not a conservative you have no mind. So I am close to 40 and you know where I stand,’’ Kathuria recently told a meeting of Indian-Americans.

The 38-year-old Kathuria, with medical and business degrees from Brown and Stanford universities, is a Conservative only in its GOP sense. He once dated a Miss India — ‘‘I won’t take her name,’’ he says.

Kathuria has kept his ties with India. Born in New Delhi, where his mother worked at Lady Hardinge Hospital, he eight months old when the family moved to the US. ‘‘We were one of the first few Indians to have chosen Chicago to build our destiny,’’ he said.

He co-founded Koshika Telecom which once had licenses to operate cellular mobile phone services in four states of India and invested $200 million.

Every year, Kathuria makes it a point to visit India, has nostalgic memories of walks along Chandigarh’s Sukhna lake (his parents still have houses in Chandigarh and Delhi), and is closely involved with the Smithsonian to preserve the arts of the Sikhs — all of it adding to his credentials to seek votes as Indian-American with strong family values.

Asked about the odds he faces in Chicago’s ethnic melting pot, Kathuria said he is confident the GOP will realise he’s the best — among the five aspirants — they’ve got. There are 12,000 Indian-Americans in Illinois, but apart from them, Kathuria is also counting on his strikingly unique appearance which, he hopes, will have a strong recall value. ‘‘The Indian community has to deliver just 100,000 votes for me to get through the primaries,’’ he says.

Kathuria now has his job cut out. He is busy convincing

Grover Norquist, the Republican anti-tax campaigner with White House links, and Karl Rove, President George Bush’s main strategist. ‘‘I have been speaking to people at the White House. I have met presidents of Chinese-American community and I am on the board of Japanese-American Foundation. On August 9, I will be marching with other Republican supporters of Asian-American communities,’’ he said.

Kathuria’s millions will also count. The next election is being touted as the most expensive in the US Senate history. ‘‘I plan to pump in $3 million, and raise another $3-4 million for the Primaries,’’ he says.

But money is perhaps the last of his problems. ‘‘A lot of people, if they mention him at all, stumble over his name. And Illinois includes not only the ethnic smorgasbord of Chicago but also a lot of farmers who wouldn’t know a Sikh if he landed in their cornfields,’’ writes The Economist.

[S1ngh]

Today Chirinjeev SIngh gave the interview on CNN for straight 5 mins 10 sec.. THis guy is smart and handled all questions very easily..

[Guest SikhForLife]

ooooo i missed it!!!!!!!!!

anyone got the internet version.. or recorded it?!!!!