primaries last week, with two falling a little short while the third won a place on the November ballot, but against an almost unbeatable opponent.
If there was any good news in the California primary last Tuesday, it was the total rejection of an obscenely anti-Muslim candidate running for the US Senate. To no one’s surprise at all, incumbent Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein led the vote tally by far.
A total of 24 men and women ran in the Senate primary. Rabbi 
Nachum Shifren, who speaks openly of his hatred for Muslims and teachers, came in 23rd with less than one-half of 1 percent of the vote. The sole candidate to do even worse was the sole candidate with an Islamic name, Kabiruddin Karim Ali!
At a campaign event last month, Rabbi Shifren cried out, “I am an Islamophobe, and everything we need to know about Islam, we learned on 9-11! I believe in peace and justice for everybody—but that’s not why they’re here…. We’re getting sucker-punched because we as white—yes, I said it!—as white, Christian Americans are being taught that somehow we are to blame for all the problems.”
Shifren also detests teachers. He called teachers “leftist radical 
scum” and offered autographed copies of his book, “Kill Your Teacher.”
Four Iranian-Americans earlier announced plans to run—two for seats in the US Congress, one in the State Assembly and one for the City Council in the state’s third largest city, San Jose.
In the first case, Banafsheh Akhlaghi, an attorney who has made quite a name for herself advocating for Iranians and other immigrants caught in the tangle of immigration laws, announced last year that she would run for the open seat in Congress that runs along the Pacific Coast from north of San Francisco up to the Oregon border. She is a Democrat and the district is heavily Democratic. But Akhlaghi withdrew several weeks ago, saying she lacked the time needed to get her message across.
Much farther south, Ron Varasteh, also a Democrat, sought to 
depose incumbent Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican who has held a seat in the US House of Representatives since first winning in 1988.
In the new “top two” primary system just adopted by California, all candidates run in a single primary with the top two finishers moving on to the November general election, even if the top two are both Republicans or both Democrats or both independents.
In California’s 48th Congressional District, Varasteh and independent Alan Schlar were the only candidates to challenge Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher easily came in first with 66.3 percent of the vote, just a hair shy of two-thirds. That was no surprise in a district that was essentially carved out to protect him. Varasteh was second with 28.9 percent and Schlar a distant third with 4.8 percent.
Rohrabacher and Varasteh will both be on the November ballot, but the results are unlikely to be much different.
Not far away, Farrah Douglas, an Iranian-born woman who married a Bell Helicopter employee before the revolution, sought a seat in the California State Assembly based on her hometown of Carlsbad, just north of San Diego.
Douglas’ district is very Republican and all three candidates who announced are Republicans. All three candidates drew substantial support, but Douglas came in last. The votes divided 39 percent for Rocky Chavez, 32 percent for Sherry Hodges and 29 percent for Douglas.
Many were surprised that Douglas was seeking the seat as she only won her first elective office—to the City Council of Carlsbad—in 2010.
The third race was the effort by Edesa Bitbadal to win a City Council seat in San Jose, just south of San Francisco. San Jose is the 10th largest city in the country and third largest in California after Los Angeles and San Diego. Born in Abadan, Bitbadal is an Assyrian Christian who sought backing from both the Iranian-American and Assyrian-American communities.
She was in a six-person race. As the votes were counted, the top three, exchanged first place during the evening with Bitbadal ahead by four votes at one point. Most of the night she was in second place. But toward the end of the ballot count, she slipped into third place. It was heartbreakingly close; a mere 59/100ths of 1 percent separated the top three. Here are the final percentages:
Robert Braunstein 19.80%
Johnny Khamis 19.55%
Edesa Bitbadal 19.21%
Leslie Reynolds 17.50%
Brian O’Neill 12.25%
Denelle Fedor 11.69%
There are still some absentee ballots to be counted, which might change the results, If not, Braunstein and Khamis advance to the November ballot. City council elections in California are non-partisan.
According to an Iran Times tabulation., there are now 11 Iranians holding elective office in North America—eight in California, two in Canada and one in Texas.
