Farouk Shami is a hair stylist turned hair and skin products entrepreneur who is running for Texas governor as a Democrat in 2010.
Shami lined up an experienced gang to run his campaign: campaign manager Joel Coon, general consultants Robert Jara and Dan McClung, pollster Ben Tulchin, and media specialist Tad Devine. He fired Coon and other experienced staff just a few weeks after they started in the fall; he replaced his campaign manager with a longtime Democratic blogger, instead.
In the spring of 2010, Shami made headlines for controversial statements he made about race - Shami called his primary opponent, Bill White, "racist" for mentioning he was "born in San Antonio", said in a debate that "without Mexicans, it would be like a day without sunshine" and later said he finds white people don't want to work in factories. Despite spending more than $6 million on his campaign, mostly on media, Shami polled in the teens.
Shami touts a rags-to-riches (roots-to-rinses?) story that took him from his birthplace in Palestine through Arkansas and Louisiana, where he started a salon, to Houston, where he founded Farouk Systems, a giant hair and spa treatment company that claims more than 1,200 employees in Texas.
He'll concentrate on education and the environment and will tout his decision to bring his company's production back to the U.S. from China — a move that won him a round of national publicity last summer. From his website:
"Things in Texas are heading in the wrong direction. The cost of health care and health insurance is out of control, too many jobs are being shipped abroad, the quality of basic public education is falling, and our air, land and water are under constant threat from polluters. We simply can’t settle for more business as usual.
"Farouk Shami is a self-made businessman from Houston. He came to America 44 years ago with $71 in his pocket and achieved the American dream. He’s built a company based in Houston that has created thousands of jobs in Texas, including 1,200 new manufacturing jobs from a plant he closed in China so he could bring those jobs to America.
"Farouk is a proud Texan who is running for Governor to help jumpstart the economy, create good paying jobs, improve our schools and provide affordable health care for all. He refuses to accept a penny from special interest money, so he can always put the peoples’ interest first and can shake up the old politics in Austin.
"Farouk Shami... The day he becomes Governor is the day business as usual ends in Texas."
Shami's business, founded in 1986, took off when he signed a distribution deal with Austin-based Armstrong McCall. John McCall is a part owner of Farouk Systems now, and the two men — particularly McCall — were the biggest contributors four years ago to Kinky Friedman's campaign for governor. Shami gave Friedman $24,400 for that run; McCall was in for $1.3 million and was listed, until last February, as Friedman's campaign treasurer.
Shami also contributed to former Rep. Martha Wong, R-Houston, who lost a 2006 race to Democrat Ellen Cohen. And in May of this year, he gave $5,000 to Republican Ted Cruz, who had his sights set on a run for attorney general. In federal races, he's contributed to candidates of all political stripes this decade, including Democrat Hillary Clinton, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Houston, Houston Mayor Bill White (for the U.S. Senate race), Ralph Nader (in 2004 and 2008), Tennessee Democrat Graham Leonard, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (the same month he gave to Cruz), and the Republican National Committee (most recently in 2007).
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