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.