Surya Yalamanchili, who is only 28 years old, has officially announced an independent bid for Congress in Ohio’s second district, currently held by Republican Jean Schmidt. He has previously been a contestant on Donald Trump’s show ‘The Apprentice,’ the director of marketing for the website LinkedIn, and a brand manager at Procter & Gamble, among other things. In 2008, interestingly enough, Jean Schmidt was challenged by the most successful independent to run for Congress that year: David Krikorian, who got 18 percent of the vote and is now running in the Democratic primary.
Yalamanchili commented on the race:
Yalamanchili likened reality television shows to politics, because both are infused with distortion and one-upmanship. He said he and other constituents are turned off by how ugly congressional races locally and nationally have gotten, with many legal battles and personal attacks.
“They are all about personality, conflict and looking to jump on one word or one phrase,” he told the Enquirer. “That’s exactly what reality TV is all about. How do we play ‘gotcha’.”
“This campaign is going to be less about personality issues. It’s very clear to me that the Democratic and Republican parties are more into bickering and raising the most money for negative ads,” he said.
From his website, it is unclear what his political positions are. However, he does state,
Simply put: Our government is out of control. It is no longer working for us. We have two political parties who consistently demonstrate that their true allegiance is to the preservation of their own power. Both parties regularly choose the special interests who fund their re-elections over the people they claim to represent. They would each rather score political points against the “other side” than enact true reform — and this despite their frequent promises to be “independent”. Increasingly, our nation’s challenges are as plain as day, the course of action obvious. Yet both parties seem incapable of enacting the urgent reforms we require.
In this article, Yalamanchili spoke a bit about his platform:
“I think we need to focus more on job development and economic strategy,” Yalamanchili said. “After World War II, we were pretty much the world’s economy, and we reached a point, and rightfully so, where we said that we didn’t need to worry about our economy for the next five to 10 years. We literally left the private sector to fend for itself for the next 60 years, and where other countries were aggressively pursuing jobs and businesses, we were driving them away with regulations and taxes.”
Yalamanchili said there are many issues he would like to see improved as well, and also had ideas on the current health care reform bill going through congress. Yalamanchili said that health care does need reformed, but felt the current proposed bill is not the way for the country to go.
“I think we need health care reform, standing by and not doing anything about it isn’t an option,” Yalamanchili said. “But I don’t think that a government run health care plan is an option either. The government doesn’t have a good track record, especially when it comes to spending.”
Also running as an independent in this district is Jim Parker, described as,
a Pike County health care administrator who has run unsuccessfully as a Democrat in the past.
14 responses so far ↓
1 HumbleTravis // Dec 8, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I am very interested to see how OH-2 will play out. State Representative Todd Book has dropped out of the race which apparently leaves the former independent David Krikorian with no primary opponent.
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/article/20091124/UPDATES01/91124012/Todd-Book-drops-out-of-2nd-District-race-for-Congress
On the other hand, Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt might have her work cut out for her against GOP challenger Michael Killburn.
2 Trent Hill // Dec 8, 2009 at 6:55 pm
David Krikorian has a definite fundraising advantage, too, he raised $200,000 (I believe) in 2008 because of his strong connections to the Armenian diaspora here in the US. They number about 1.5 million and have some real money to throw around from ARMENPAC, the Armenian National Committee of America, etc. I think they badly want an Armenian-American Congressman, so you should look for them to POUR money into this race. The Democrats, too, will look at this as a possible pickup–one of few nationally (Another main one is LA-2, where Congressman Cao will certainly lose by a landslide).
The incumbent, Jean Schmidt, isn’t very popular–and won her last race by only 45% in a three way race (a race in which Krikorian scored 18% as an independent). Look for Krikorian to win after Schmidt has a tough primary and then loses many votes to businessman Yalamanchili.
3 Trent Hill // Dec 8, 2009 at 6:56 pm
God, I want to start a nuts-and-bolts political report.
4 HumbleTravis // Dec 8, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Also relevant is the fact that the Libertarian Party of Ohio endorsed Krikorian’s independent run in 2008.
5 Ross Levin // Dec 8, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Trent, do it. Or just post some stuff like that here, with a clear disclaimer that it’s your opinion. It would be (nearly) unique and interesting if you put minor parties into a discussion like that.
6 Ollie // Dec 8, 2009 at 7:37 pm
How about a Sluts With Nuts Political Report?
7 Morgan Brykein // Dec 8, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I wonder if they’ll mention this on Extra.
8 Don Lake .......... FORMER Don Grundmann Fan // Dec 9, 2009 at 1:21 am
Trent Hill // Dec 8, 2009:
….. I want to start a nuts-and-bolts political report.
“Keep God out of SECULAR politics and bend over back wards to be fair ……….”
9 Robert Milnes // Dec 9, 2009 at 1:54 am
Trent @3, what do you mean?
10 Chuck Moulton // Dec 9, 2009 at 2:28 am
Some other Apprentice candidates have run for political office:
* Bradford Cohen ran for City Commissioner of Fort Lauderdale, FL
* Raj Bhakta ran for U.S. Congress in PA-13 (the district I ran in)
11 Just Saying // Dec 9, 2009 at 9:23 am
I heard that Pat Buchanan is thinking about endorsing this guy. He thinks Yalamanchili might save the one remaining job in the U.S.
12 Third Party Revolution // Dec 9, 2009 at 10:12 pm
We here at Third Party Revolution endorse Jim Parker and Surya Yalamanchili in their campaigns for Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District, along with many other third party and independent candidates seeking public offices nationwide, ranging from local to federal levels.
13 Third Party Revolution // Feb 20, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Third Party Revolution is withdrawing its endorsement of Surya Yalamanchi since he is now seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination.
14 Third Party Revolution // Feb 21, 2010 at 10:29 am
The same with Jim Parker.
Leave a Comment