LSI went away for a weekend to Sacramento to observe the State Senate debate on the budget. It was 6 PM on Sunday and all the news crews from 4 major stations were gathering outside the State Capital since 3 PM. But no news since nothing get passed except for some political appointments to Board of Education, Board of Parole, etc... Out of boredome, LSI went into Arnold's office, took some pictures of self sitting behind the governor's desk before one of his staff walked in and asked which group LSI was with. Without knowing which group was touring what, the staff ushered LSI out. Arnold was in the building but not in his office.
On Saturday's morning, Mayor Chuck Reed and Councilmember Pete Constant went precinct walking with Nguyen. On the walk with them were Nguyen's campaign staff and the usual Nguyen's Vietnamese-American media. They knocked on 8 houses and 5 doors were not opened. Three other people who opened the doors did not look please.
It was raining hard, so they called it a day. Reed promised to have another precinct walk this weekend.
One suggestion to Nguyen though - instead of just advertising only in the Vietnamese-American community, Nguyen should let the mainstream media in on the event and get the most exposure.
The latest poll within the Vietnamese-American community shows the trend as expected. Nguyen is banking on the Hispanic and the White voters. The question Nguyen has to ask is why would the Hispanic community wants to vote for Nguyen more than they wanted to vote for Cindy Chavez. Chavez could barely get 20% turn-out in her mayoral race. If she had a 35% turn-out from her own natural base, it would have been Mayor Chavez and not Reed.
To the Hispanics community, it would be much better for Nguyen to be recalled so that they could either by appointment or election get their own people in this year.
The White voters are less than 10% of the vote. They themselves know they are irrelevant in this election so their turn out will also be low.
On the surface, it seems that with massive media support, unlimited resources putting in by South Bay Labor, elected officials and influential community leaders overwhelmingly behind Nguyen, this would be an election for her to lose. It still is but at least with over $300,000 already spent so far on salaries, media, equipment, phone, food, gas, etc.... Nguyen could proudly say, win or lose, that I am a one woman economic stimulus for San Jose. Matter of fact, this would go down as the most expensive race ever for a single council seat. Both sides will end up spending a total of $600,000 or more. Now if the economic multiplier is applied at a standard 1.73, this is a total of $1,038,000 pumped into San Jose economy.
That is a lot of dough. Thank you Madison Nguyen.
