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.

Joseph Dovinh, hoping to sneak in a victory by running for two lesser-known offices, had his head handed to him. In the Coast Community College District, Dovinh lost to incumbent Jerry Patterson by a whopping 81% to 19%. In the Midway City Sanitary District, he finished last, with just 12.2% of the votes.

That is still better than one Nam Pham, the appointed Santa Ana Library Commissioner running for the Rancho Santiago Community College District, who wasn’t campaigning at all and finished dead last in a field of 5, with single-digit 9.6% of the votes.

Another non-campaigning candidate even did better than Dovinh. Alex Lam for Stanton City Council finished third out of five, with 19.1% of the votes.

In the race for the Westminster School District, four Viets were running, and ended up in the four last places. The total votes cast for the four Viets, even if added together, would still keep them in last place.

Another last place finisher is John Chuong Nguyen, getting 9.4% of the votes for Garden Grove School Board.

Up north, Viet non-incumbents in Santa Clara County were not doing any better.

Kathi N. Tran, running for the West Valley-Mission Community College District, received less than 7% of the vote, coming in last in a field of four. The next higher person got more than 29% of the vote.

Van Vuong, running for the Milipitas School Board, also came in last, but at least gathered double digits at 22% in a field of three.

Doing better than them is Khoa Nguyen, running for the Berryessa Union SD, is coming in third with barely more than 100 votes separating the top 4 candidates.

Heidi Pham, running for Milpitas City Council, is placing third. Her husband Craig Donnelly is losing badly in his race for Milpitas mayor, trailing 36-64.

Non-Viet candidates who supplement their chances with Viet votes, however, are doing fine.

In the race for Santa Clara County Supervisor, former San Jose Councilman Dave Cortese, a supporter of the “Little Saigon” naming camp, has a commanding lead of 57% to 43% over his opponent.

U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (pictured at the victory party her campaign held jointly with the DPOC, Assemblyman Jose Solorio‘s campaign, and the OC Barack Obama campaign) has always counted Viet voters as part of her support base, and she gathered a whopping 66.4% of the votes, almost twice the total of her two challengers put together — and the highest margin among OC-area Congress members.

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?

“I will thank everybody,” she said. “Either way it goes, win or lose, I will thank everybody, because a lot of hard work has gone into this.”

If she does win, Linh Ho plans to put a lot of work into planning for the city’s next 20 or 30 years. “The main thing Garden Grove lacks,” says Linh Ho, “is investment. We just updated our General Plan, but we still need to make sure investment comes to our city.”

The Bolsavik then tried to get Linh Ho to make predictions on other elections, but she wouldn’t bite. The most she’d go is to say that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States. She would not make predictions on Proposition 8, on Andrew Do and Trung Nguyen, or on fellow Democrat Paul Lucas.

Fair enough. Who would?

(Actually the Bolsavik knows one politician/candidate who would be so reckless, but that person is not running in this election.)

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.

Of course, savvy office-seekers came out to shore up support for themselves.

Above, front row from left, are Kim-Oanh NguyenLam, incumbent Trustee of the Garden Grove School District running for re-election; Debbie Cook, Huntington Beach Mayor seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Rohrabacher; and Garden Grove Councilman Mark Rosen.

In this picture, from left is Phu Nguyen, former UVSA president and one of the organizers; Trung Ta, a member of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County and the president of the newly formed Vietnamese-American Democrats of OC; Ethan Dong-Matsuda, a barely-teen published author who’s the son of North OC College board member Michael Matsuda and Viet activist Xuyen Dong-Matsuda; Linh Ho, candidate for Garden Grove City Council; Q. Bao Nguyen; and Robin Marcario, candidate for Garden Grove City Council.

About Q. Bao Nguyen.

Eight years ago, McCain used the racist term “gook” to call Vietnamese – and he later said he meant the communists only – which would make McCain the only fluent English speaker to misunderstand the term. The Bolsavik actually believes McCain’s intent – as a millionaire senator from Arizona, it is doubtful if McCain has many opportunities to meet and therefore cuss out any Asian-American.

Anyway, so McCain came out to Little Saigon for a rally in 2000, and Q. Bao Nguyen was there to protest. Bao was so visible, author and former Naval fighter pilot Quang X. Pham, who introduced McCain that night, actually saw Bao from the stage and remembered and recognized him eight years later at the OCAPICA candidate forum (this one).

So, McCain was speaking, Q. Bao was heckling, the way all political rallies are and should be, and lo and behold out of nowhere came a handful of former South Vietnamese military officers in fatigues. They started man-handling Bao and his friends, and pushed Bao out onto Bolsa Avenue, into the path of an incoming SUV, almost killing him.

A younger, shorter-haired Q. Bao was one of the central figures in the documentary film Saigon, U.S.A., from which the photo at right was taken.

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.”

Oh great. The community finally set a trend, and it just has to be a trend of doing protests of the kind typified by the Viet Weekly one. The Committee to Oppose Resolution 36 (in Vietnamese: Lien Uy Ban Chong Nghi Quyet 36, named after a directive issued by the Communist Party of Vietnam) must be proud.

Unfortunately, the one candidate who actively organized, participated, and encouraged the Viet Weekly protests, wasn’t there. (That would be Trung Nguyen, if you don’t know.) So the audience got to hear only from people with some degree of separation from the picketers.

In response, mayoral candidate Karentracy Moreland Urda gave an answer saying something about freedom of speech. Not sure what her point was. Council candidate Tony Flores suggested that the “key word is tolerance” for a solution. Candidate Robin Marcario also suggested that people should “have dialogue and understand different viewpoints.”

Paul Lucas was the only one mentioning a Vietnamese name, citing the case of Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest imprisoned by the government of Vietnam, as an example of how “the pain still comes back and haunts” the Viet community. In the early days of the Viet Weekly protests, Lucas could be seen hanging around with the protesters; he now says he was there to observe.

The one Viet candidate for Garden Grove City Council who showed up, Linh Ho, ran a circle around the question and somehow ended up praising some oral history project.

Mayor Bill Dalton offered something of an excuse for the protesters. He said, “Sometimes when you come from some place like communist Vietnam where you didn’t have the right to assemble, now that you have that right you tend to go overboard.”

Council candidate Charles “Mitch” Mitchell, however, didn’t mince words. He firmly asserted that it was “wrong to try to shut someone down.” He proudly proclaimed that he had taken place in the counter-protests, and said, “As a veteran who put my life on the line, I feel very strong about the principles that form the foundation of our system of government.” To him, Viet Weekly was right and the protesters were wrong.

Even sharper words, however, came from incumbent Councilman Steve Jones. After prefacing (like everyone else) with respect for both the rights of the press and the right to assemble, he added, “I suspect there are a lot of protests that were based on issues that are (slight hesitation, then:) augmented, for purposes of self-promotion.” Not sure which protest he meant, the one in Westminster or the one in Garden Grove.

Don’t worry, Hung Nguyen (front and center in picture above, by the Register). The Bolsavik is sure he didn’t mean you.

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 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:

Dear Central Committee members,

Last month there was a special meeting to endorse non-partisan candidates. In the city of Garden Grove, there were two seats available and three candidates. Unfortunately there was only one candidate who reached the required 60% of votes to secure an endorsement. That candidate was me. And I thank you for your support.
 
The DPOC E-Board has called for a special endorsement vote that will take place this coming Monday evening at the Carpenters hall in Orange at the regular monthly meeting of the DPOC.
 
I am asking that you support and vote to endorse candidate Linh Ho for the DPOC endorsement. I believe that it is important that a second endorsement be made to fill the ticket for this race. I also believe that the most viable candidate to endorse isLinh Ho.
 
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.
 
I thank you for your time and I hope you will join me in supporting Linh Ho for the Garden Grove City Council.

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. The first-time candidate has been not raising enough funds, missing some important events, speechifying for too long at other people’s events, and generally still slowly realizing that being an activist is far different from being a candidate, that politics is more than just policy, and that campaigning is a difficult art that takes time to master.

This development actually has a surprising element in it: Paul Lucas, considered labor’s favorite, didn’t get the endorsement.

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.