{"id":1661,"date":"2002-11-04T02:05:15","date_gmt":"2002-11-04T07:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2002-11-04T02:05:15","modified_gmt":"2002-11-04T07:05:15","slug":"long_shots_get_longer_muslim_candidates_face_uphill_battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/2002\/11\/long_shots_get_longer_muslim_candidates_face_uphill_battle\/","title":{"rendered":": Long Shots Get Longer: Muslim Candidates Face Uphill Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altmuslim.com\/ee_images\/maad_election.jpg\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"right\">\n<div class=\"caption\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>It takes quite an optomistic Muslim to organize a grueling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bayarea.com%2Fmld%2Fmercurynews%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F4175574.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">campaign for Congress<\/a>, put months of your life on hold, and face off an opponent who has everything from skin color to war chest in their favor, but two Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.syedmahmood.com\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Syed Mahmood<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maad4congress.com\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Maad Abu-Ghazalah<\/a> \u2013 have doggedly pursued election to the US Congress despite the post-9\/11 climate.  The story of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.accessatlanta.com%2Fajc%2Fopinion%2Fsabir%2Felection.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Muslims<\/a> in the American political process has not been a long one, but it has so far been peppered with political neophytes who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qforcongress.com%2F\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">cleanse their background<\/a> in order to become more electable, endorsements of candidates that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amaweb.org%2Felection2000%2Fampcc_endorses.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">backfire<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.arabia.com%2Flife%2Farticle%2Fenglish%2F0%2C11827%2C32449%2C00.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">returned<\/a> campaign contributions.  With Abu-Ghazalah and Mahmood, there have been some successes and setbacks.  For Abu-Ghazalah, running against pro-war hawk <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reaganhome.com%2Fimages%2Flantos.gif\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Tom Lantos<\/a>, what started out as a a campaign tilting against windmills has become a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sanmateocountytimes.com%2FStories%2F0%2C1413%2C87%25257E11268%25257E960682%2C00.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">real race<\/a>, with Abu-Ghazalah picking up <a href=\"http:\/\/paloaltodailynews.com%2Fprojs%2Feditorials%2F102502a.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">significant endorsements<\/a> due to the high anti-war sentiment in the area.  Mahmood, on the other hand, while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pakistanlink.com%2FCommunity%2F2002%2FAugust%2F02%2F08.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">making inroads<\/a> into the diverse constituencies in his district, faces a blow to his campaign from a Muslim <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bayarea.com%2Fmld%2Fmercurynews%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F4428134.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">endorsement of his competitor<\/a>, Pete Stark (D-Fremont). The American Muslim Political Coordination Council, which includes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cair-net.org\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CAIR<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amaweb.org\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">AMA<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amconline.org\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">AMC<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpac.org\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">MPAC<\/a>, said that their endorsement was based on Mahmood\u2019s prospects and Stark\u2019s support of Muslim issues.  \u201c[We\u2019re] supporting based on issues rather than personalities,\u201d said CAIR founder Omar Ahmed, emphasizing the difficulty they had in making the choice. \u201cI think it was the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few die-hard Muslim candidates in this Tuesday&#8217;s elections are keeping their hopes up despite a lack of funds, political inexperience, and post 9\/11 anti-Muslim sentiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":530,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-briefings"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>: Long Shots Get Longer: Muslim Candidates Face Uphill Battle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few die-hard Muslim candidates in this Tuesday&#039;s elections are keeping their hopes up despite a lack of funds, political inexperience, and post 9\/11 anti-Muslim sentiment.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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