Bolsavik.com

Viet candidates lost left and right, Rep and Dem, Southern and Northern California. It is a demonstration of Viet candidates’ narrow lack of broader appeal that when non-Viet voters turn out in record numbers, they were not voting for the Viet candidates.

All in all, every single Viet candidate is heading to defeat, with the exception of the incumbents running for re-election: in Texas, Hubert Vo in the Texas House of Representatives; in San Jose, Lan Nguyen on the East Side Union High School District; and here locally, Van Tran in the California Assembly and Kim-Oanh Nguyen-Lam (pictured) on the Garden Grove School Board.

And even those two didn’t fare so well. Van’s winning margin at 53-47 was the smallest among all O.C. Assembly members, and Nguyen-Lam ended third in a race for three seats.

Truong Diep, a Van Tran staffer, was expected to win a seat on the Westminster City Council — but didn’t. He ended behind not just winners Frank Fry (incumbent) and Penny Loomer, but also behind Alin Hamade who like Diep is an appointee to the city’s Traffic Commission.

In the hotly contested race for Garden Garden City Council, with two seats available, all three Viet candidates lost, though with respectable results.

OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen’s Chief of Staff Andrew Do finished third, 1200 votes behind Robin Marcario the second-place winner. New law school grad and first-time candidate Linh Ho (pictured, with Marcario at the OCAPICA candidate forum) finished behind Do, but ahead of Garden Grove School Board member Trung Nguyen, who by now has lost 4 of 4 straight races for 4 different offices.

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So the Bolsavik caught up with Linh Ho on Election Day. She was out at a polling station watching the voters. She had been out on GOTV mission, getting voter who support her to come out and make her the next member of the Garden Grove City Council.

Linh sounded confident, saying “I think we are looking good right now. I got positive feedback from people in the field, from people after they saw me on TV or heard me on the radio.”

She is, as she says, “feeling good.”

Nonetheless, Linh admitted that the campaign had taken a toll. “People have warned me that you won’t know what it’s like until you’ve been a candidate yourself.” And now that she has, she knows what it’s like.

“It’s taken a personal toll on you, a toll on your family, your friends, everyone who believes in you,” she said.

(Photo, by the way, was not from today. It’s from before the campaign has taken its toll.)

So, what’s the first thing Linh Ho will do after she wins? Going to Disneyland?

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A crowd that the OC Register here estimates to be over a hundred gathered yesterday morning across the street from the Asian Village Mall to rally in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

There were several politicians there, but before that let’s talk about a couple of interesting handouts among the dozen or so available. Both are in Vietnamese.

This one is a two-page letter going down the reasons why voting for Barack Obama is a good idea for Viet voters. It reminds people how John McCain had defined the “middle class” as people making between 1 and 5 million a year, apparently as evidence of where McCain’s economic priorities lie.

And this one here is a tri-fold brochure with items show why McCain would be a bad idea because he’s close to the communist government of Vietnam.

Interestingly, the brochure quotes Jerry Kiley, a Vietnam veteran most famous for having splashed red wine on Vietnam’s then-Prime Minister Phan Van Khai when the latter was on a visit to Washington, D.C. At the time, Kiley said the red wine symbolized the blood of POW-MIA.

Kiley belongs to a group of POW-MIA advocates who have long been angry at fellow veterans John McCain and John Kerry for blocking their efforts to punish the Vietnamese government over the POW-MIA issue. He’s got a web site, here, that tells some real horror stories about McCain including this funny one. However, very much unclear how much of it is true; a lot of evidence is highly iffy. Also read this excerpt from North Vietnamese radio broadcast.

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The OCAPICA candidate forum, which brought together candidates running for the city councils and school boards of Garden Grove and Westminster, went off without any fireworks Monday night. One question, however, starkly revealed how the candidates thought of one significant development in the Viet community.

With the races pretty quiet except for perhaps the Trung Nguyen / Andrew Do competition, the absence of those two left the forum, well, sedate. Trung never confirmed, and Andrew confirmed but didn’t show. That would be Andrew’s empty seat in the photo above of the candidates for Garden Grove city council and mayor, with moderator Dr. Linda T. Vo at the podium.

There was, however, one moment of excitement when panelist Deepa Bharath, an OC Register reporter (seated in the middle of table at right) cited the protests against Viet Weekly magazine that ended after a whole year picketing on Garden Grove’s Historic Main Street, and asked the candidates about what she called “the protests that are the trend in the community.”

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A candidate forum, organized by OCAPICA and moderated by the Chair of Asian-American Studies at UC Irvine, is taking place today evening, putting together candidates for school boards and city councils of Garden Grove and Westminster.

The flyer (click on the picture to see full uncropped version) doesn’t list Garden Grove city council candidate Trung Nguyen as confirmed, but a person involved in the organization told the Bolsavik that both Trung and his nemesis Andrew Do will be there. If true (and that’s a big if), it should make this forum the first time both appear at the same public event as candidates.

Other Viet candidates scheduled to appear include Kim-Oanh Nguyen-Lam, the incumbent member of the Garden Grove School Board; Linh Ho, candidate for Garden Grove City Council; and Frank Tran, candidate for Westminster School Board.

Moderating the forum will be Dr. Linda T. Vo, a Board member of OCAPICA and professor and chair of Asian-American Studies at UC Irvine.

The forum will take place at the Board Room of the Bolsavik’s employer, the Rancho Santiago Community College District. The building, at the corner of Broadway and Santa Clara, can be seen from the I-5 freeway.

Here’s the when and where:

5:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Rancho Santiago Community College District Board Room
2323 North Broadway Avenue
Santa Ana, CA 92706

For info: Tanzila Ahmed, (714) 636-9095

Paul Lucas, the candidate endorsed by the Democratic Party of OC for the Garden Grove City Council, last night sent out an email to the DPOC executive board, asking them to also endorse Linh Ho (pictured).

The election is for two seats on the Garden Grove City Council, one vacant and another being held by incumbent Steve Jones, a favorite of (some) developers. Last month the DPOC met and was able to agree on only one candidate, and that was Lucas. Apparently today they’re looking to endorse the remaining slot and two people want it: Ho and Robin Marcario.

Considering that last time Lucas got in the middle of other people’s politicking, it backfired horribly, most of all on himself, this time he includes this disclaimer:

To be sure that there is no confusion, I have not been compelled or pressured to make this plea to you. I am doing this of my own accord with no influence from anyone or any group. I am asking you to vote to endorse candidate Linh Ho for the City of garden Grove race in order to have a full ticket of endorsed candidates and also in the hope of securing some sense of unity and solidarity among the Democratic Party of Orange County.

Following is the full text of Lucas’ email:

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The OC Labor Federation voted to endorse T. Linh Ho and Robin Marcario for the two seats on the Garden Grove City Council, according to a Democratic operative who is into this sort of things.

Pictured are Ho and Marcario in the front row with State Senator Lou Correa and Assembly candidate Ken Arnold (first right) at Kim-Oanh NguyenLam’s (first left) reelection launch.

This is a welcome break for Linh Ho, whose campaign is off to a rocky start. (more…)

Garden Grove Unified School District trustee Kim Oanh Nguyen-Lam, a.k.a. the school board member who doesn’t embarass the Vietnamese-American community with insane protests and red-baiting, is launching her re-election bid tomorrow Saturday.

The public event will be held at Garden Grove Park (where the Tet Festival is) at 2 p.m., and joining her will be U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez and newly declared candidate for Garden Grove City Council T. Linh Ho.

Apparently the Bolsavik is on Dr. Nguyen-Lam’s Viet media distribution list, so he got the Vietnamese flyer. Click on the picture to see in full.

A former student activist from the UVSA is back in town and she’s running for the Garden Grove City Council.

T. Linh Ho was in the Union of Vietnamese Students Association of Southern California (Vietnamese: Tong Hoi Sinh Viên) at around the same time as some other now-notable names in the community: Phu Nguyen, Tammy T. Tran, etc. At UCLA, Linh played a major role in the unification of the former Vietnamese Students Association and the Vietnamese-American Coalition to form the Vietnamese Student Union.

Student activists from about 5 years ago probably will remember Linh from the UVSA, the Tet Festival, and the Camp for Youth, casually called in Vietnamese “Trai He Tong Hoi.”

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