Chris Prevatt at TheLiberalOC.com reported here that the Orange County Young Democrats withdrew its endorsement of Hoa Van Tran, the only Democrat running for OC Board of Supervisor, First District (actually, any district).
Quote from the OCYD’s press release:
“Our organization placed our trust in Tran in the belief that he would run a clean and honest campaign for Supervisor. His campaign staff’s behavior is embarrassing the reputation Democrats have in reaching out to minority groups in Orange County. Therefore, we are withdrawing our endorsement of him for the First Supervisorial District election.”
Bensley went on to say, “Our endorsement means little if we support any and all Democrats, regardless of their merits. We are not blind partisans that willfully disregard wrongdoing within a campaign. We look forward to supporting a candidate for Supervisor that can genuinely represent the issues that young people are concerned with in the future.”
The press release, apparently drafted in a hurry, doesn’t identify who Bensley is. Nothing in the press release indicates whether Hoa Van Tran had the opportunity to address the OCYD before the endorsement was withdrawn. Considering that Tran’s own campaign wouldn’t let him speak, even if the OCYD didn’t it wouldn’t seem too bad….
Jason Bensley is the President of the OCYD. The press release was disseminated today (Tuesday), but OCYD meetings are held on Thursdays. It could have just been a delay, but I wonder if it was that board decided to revoke the endorsement or if there had been a full membership vote.
The HVT campaign has been mired in controversy these last few months, but I’m surprised by this sudden move. I’ve seen a lot of rumor and insinuation about the campaign’s volunteers, but no real proof that any of those kids are gang-affiliated. And while the arrests clearly do not reflect well upon the campaign, those kids are innocent until proven guilty.
I don’t believe that’s enough to warrant withdrawing the endorsement, especially an endorsement by a Democratic organization for the lone Democrat in the race.
For the record,
The incident that lead to the arrests of two people associated with the HVT campaign occured aftr midnight in a another city the day after they helped volunteer at the HVT fundraisr at Original Mikes in Sanat Ana. The recent noise about the incident did not occur until after a month the incident occured.
I find that hanging that incident around the neck of HVT is a bit of a stretch.