March 4, 2002
Challenging Gary Condit Without Using His Name
By EVELYN NIEVES
TOCKTON, Calif., March 2 — Working the lazy afternoon latte sippers under the umbrellas at Starbucks, Dr. Sukhi Singh, candidate for Congress, never once mentioned the name Gary Condit.
With his fine gray suit, long gray beard, blue shirt and blue turban, Dr. Singh, chairman of the department of civil engineering at Santa Clara University in San Jose, caught the attention of the mall crowd in this suburbanized farm country town just fine without bandying about the Condit name.
He could let the other four Democratic challengers for Mr. Condit's seat in the 18th Congressional District use the incumbent's relationship with a missing 24-year-old Washington intern to propel their profiles in Tuesday's primary election. Dr. Singh, 62, had novelty, not to mention the academic's knack for asking provocative questions, on his side.
"Do you know about some of the water problems we have in the district?" he asked Steve Groom, a Stockton certified public accountant watching the world go by.
"Why, yes," Mr. Groom said. With that, the two were off to a candidate's favorite place — the chat zone that can make voters who meet candidates actually want to vote for them.
"I don't want to be represented by somebody who portrays a lack of character," Mr. Groom said later, "so I would never vote for Condit."
Nor has he. Stockton, a growing city with 45-minute commuters to Silicon Valley, became part of the 18th District after the 2000 census. State Democratic leaders, who control the Legislature, redrew the district lines last year to improve the chances that a Democrat would retain the seat whether Mr. Condit ran or not.
Mr. Condit, whose 30-year career in politics has never been more in jeopardy, has been running underdog-hard in the last few weeks. He has added $50,000 from the sale of his condominium in Washington to his campaign coffers, the first time he has had to use his own money in a campaign. He has gone on "Larry King Live" to make his case. He has also tirelessly walked precincts.
For the most part, Mr. Condit has stuck with his hard-core base in Modesto, where there are also hard feelings against him. Modesto was where his "good friend" Chandra Ann Levy was about to return when she disappeared last May.
That Dr. Singh is met warmly throughout Mr. Condit's district says much about how the seven-term representative's star has fallen since questions about his relationship with Ms. Levy made him the most-media- hounded member of Congress through last spring and summer.
Dr. Singh is hardly the front-runner in the race — a state assemblyman, Dennis Cardoza, once Mr. Condit's closest ally and chief of staff, is considered the candidate to beat. (The other candidates are Ralph L. White, a former Stockton city councilman; Joseph Martin, a gas station manager who lives in San Jose; and Elvis Pringle, a record producer who lives in a Los Angeles suburb.) But the gentleman whose beard and turban have made him the object of much curiosity has managed to charm a district once considered "Condit Country."
"I just talk to people and they respond," said Dr. Singh, who has never run for office before. Nor does he live in the district, although he emphasizes that it was the first place he lived when his family immigrated to the United States from India 34 years ago. "I was a farmer here; my family grew grapes," said Dr. Singh, who lives in the Silicon Valley city of Fremont, the center of the Bay area's Indian and Afghan immigrant population.
Stockton, where many of the high- tech valley's clerical workers have flocked in search of affordable housing, is also home to the first Sikh temple in the United States, built in 1915. That temple keeps Dr. Singh, former president of the Sikh Council of North America, connected to the area, he said.
"The district is becoming even more diverse, and I represent that diversity," said Dr. Singh, who had filed his intention to run for Mr. Condit's seat two years ago but then decided against running.
This time, he said, colleagues encouraged him to run, in part because the district had such a high profile. "They said what better way to get your issues across than to strike when the iron is hot?" Dr. Singh said.
Bringing high-tech jobs to the Central Valley would be a primary goal, he said. So would creating a plan that would allow development while keeping in mind the water and land resources of the area. "Development is taking place based on 40-year-old plans," he said.
Mr. Condit has been campaigning to fight the growing smog problem in the Central Valley, which has become the most polluted region in the country. He has also been campaigning against the negative press he has received and the negative campaigning of his opponents. Polls show he has been gaining a little ground on Mr. Cardoza, who has led him by a ratio of two to one.
Dr. Singh's campaign slogan is "Restoring Values to the Valley." As a symbolic candidate, he has not had to use the Condit card once.
"One bonus of this campaign," Dr. Singh said, "is that it is teaching people that those of us with turbans and beards are just as American as everyone else."
