Obama Campaign’s Muslim American Affairs Coordinator Resigns
As if the Obama campaign isn’t having a difficult time reaching out to Muslim Americans…
Found this interesting blog post responding to Mazen Asbahi’s resignation as Muslim American Affairs Coordinator for Barack Obama’s Campaign:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/perspective-on-mazen-asbahi.html
Mazen's resignation comes after … well… after accusations that he served on a business board with a prominent Chicago community Imam who was linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood political movements (?) However, Mazen left the board once he learned about the accusations against the Imam. So he spent less than a few weeks “tied” to an Imam with fundamentalist political ideals.
Mazen is my cousin and I had the chance to catch up with him at a wedding a few weeks ago. He was excited about taking part in Obama’s campaign – wore his lapel pin and all at the wedding reception and all! He said he had big plans for motivating Arab and Muslim Americans to get involved in “change.” I don't endorse either campaign, but his passion for "change" and motivating the Arab American community to take part in it was inspiring. It is disappointing to see that misinformation has pushed him away from a great opportunity that seemed perfect for the prominent and accomplished lawyer.
It will be interesting to see how/if both presidential campaigns will significantly reach out to Arab Americans. Can you think of anything either contenders have done so far?