Gujarati to add might to Democrats' poll campaign

WASHINGTON DC: A second generation Gujarati is ensuring that all organisations aligned with the Democratic Party and Democrats speak the same language, give out the same message in the run-up to the US Presidential elections this November.
Parag Mehta, 31, is the director of external communications for Democratic National Committee (DNC) - the highest staff position held by an Indian American in the party apparatus.In the next two months his job is to "make sure that voters know who we are and what we stand for and who Republicans and Senator John Mc-Cain are and what they stand for".
Mehta was promoted from the post of national training director of the DNC on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Denver recently. In his previous position , which he held from 2005 he taught the party staff, organisers and activists in all 50 US states how to win elections.
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts and raised in Temple, Texas, Mehta got excited about politics at a young age. "In the summer of 1988, my dad made me sit down and watch the DNC convention on television. As a kid I was very angry about having to watch news and politics but then I heard our governor Ann Richards' terrific speech. It made me think politics can be fun and interesting," he says.
Mehta graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and received a master's degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2000. The same year he realised the dream of working for Bill Clinton at the White House as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF).
In 2003 he heard Governor Howard Dean (current DNC chairman) give a speech criticising the Democratic Party on several issues including opposing war on Iraq before it even started. "I really found that impressive," he says.
He quit his job and drove to Vermont to volunteer for his Presidential campaign. With talent and hard work he worked his way up. "To change politics, we need to start from within. We started by fixing our party," he says.
Being in the thick of things, didn't he ever consider contesting elections? "I am asked this all the time. Even when Governor Dean did I said it is hard given that I am from a minority and grew up in a rural part of Texas. But numerous Indian Americans into US politics have proved that you don't have to look like the voters to win, you need to understand their lives. For our parents' generation, America was a destination, for my generation it is home. And so running for office is an important thing to do," he says.
His father Dr Vijay A Mehta is a general surgeon originally from Jamnagar, Gujarat who moved to US in 1972. Mother, D. Vinoo is a physician, a psychiatrist from Gujarat too, though raised in Mumbai. "Unlike what we are called, ABCDs, I am not confused at all. We consider ourselves lucky, we got the best of both values," he says.