How do you know that every one of the votes that Mahendru lost was due to his name? Do you know that every voter who voted for the other candidate did so because she had an easier name, or might they have had other reasons actually related to qualifications?

14 • Dr Amonymous said

Your argument boils down to whether about racism/unfamiliar foreign name can translate into flipping 30,000 votes or so (which would put him about where most of the other Democratic candidates were) in a race that most voters probbaly didn’t pay much attention to–that’s about 0.3 percent. And that’s assuming that other factors didn’t play any role (positive or negative – it could be that the effect was greater but he made up for it with a stellar campaign – or the opposite). So you can’t really be very confident about this just based on these numbers.

For those who think the name is not conclusive, I would point you to the fact that Mahendru lost primarily in the absentee votes – these votes given by people who mailed in ballots largely before his TV ads aired. His early vote and other poll numbers were consistent with other Democratic contenders who won.

Mahendru outspent his opponent and also outspent each of the other Democratic contenders for all the state district court races. See http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6096937.html. If you speak to attorneys in Houston or read the Houston Chronicle you will see that out of the Democratic contenders he was one of the most, if not the most qualified contender.

Lesson learned – Names do matter, but only up to a price point.

M.J. Khan is on Houston City Council, representing Desi and Latino District F, and elected after 9/11. Would he have lost if he ran as “Masroor Javed Khan”. Maybe. Who cares?

Choosing to go by a name that is easier for your countrymen to pronounce, or one they are more familiar with, is not “selling out”.

I plan to run as “Abe Tripp.”

very smart. in republican Tx, can’t hurt to be associated with Linda.

What a ridiculous statement. Someone with Jindal’s politics becoming Governor of Louisiana isn’t an end that most 2nd gens wanted in the first place (including you), so I don’t think in this case they would care whether the means are justified or not. And I doubt Jindal cares about any sort of racial integrity or about ‘representing’ the brown people except for when it comes to getting money and votes, so again, let’s stop making excuses for Jindal. He ‘sold out’ a looooong time ago, not because he recently realized he had to make sacrifices for politics, as with R.K. Sandill.