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Space Politics

Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…

Kathuria, Ryan, and the Illinois Senate race

February 28, 2004 at 5:07 pm · Filed under Campaign '04

As noted here earlier, one of the candidates in the Republican primary for the US Senate race in Illinois is Chirinjeev Kathuria, one of the early investors in MirCorp. With that primary coming up in just over two weeks, I was curious to see how he was doing in a crowded field of candidates for the open Senate seat. According to a Chicago Tribune article published Monday, Kathuria is lumped together with several other candidates under the catch-all “Other”, with only 2% of the vote combined together. It would appear that Dr. Kathuria’s bid to be a senator will be as successful as MirCorp’s effort was to save the Mir space station.

Leading the Republican primary in Illinois, with 30% in the Tribune/WGN poll, is Jack Ryan. Besides sharing a name with the protagonist of a number of Tom Clancy novels, Ryan is best known for once being married to actress Jeri Ryan, who played “Seven of Nine” on Star Trek: Voyager.

Jack Ryan, though, doesn’t appear to be much of a fan of space: in a campaign commercial he answers the doorbell to his home and is greeted by a stereotypically nerdy scientist. “Hi, I’m Dr. Jasper,” the man says, “I’m collecting to build a telescope on a volcanic peak in Mexico.” Ryan then slams the door in his face. After a couple of similar encounters with people trying to raise money for other odd projects, the commercial cuts to Ryan, sitting in his living room. “Every home in America pays $21,000 in taxes to fund ridiculous programs like these,” he says. “If you’re tired of the government wasting your money, vote for me.”

2 Comments

  Bill White wrote @ February 29th, 2004 at 2:32 am

Too bad about Ryans divorce.

The idea that Seven of Nine might someday have become First Lady would have been awesome.

  Alex Russell wrote @ March 3rd, 2004 at 4:28 pm

If someone had described that Jack Ryan campaign ad to me, I would have thought they were exaggerating. He’s against funding at least for astronomy and perhaps funding for other science. He’s against funding for environmental preservation and possibly biological science. And his third example is apparently for people who think that jobs moving overseas is, not the work of the market and free trade, which is what it really is, but of stupid government subsidies - or maybe it’s for people who are just paranoid about foreigners.

And you can just slam the door before you even know what any of that is about.

His slogan could be, “I’ll stand for your right not to have to know a darn thing.” I do not like to think of the number of people for whom this struck exactly the right chord.

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