Jeff Rosen and His Victory over Dolores Carr

From Jeff Rosen to supporters via email

We Won — Thank You!

Dear Friends,

Today we brought change to this county. By a margin of 2,854 votes and 1.14%, we won!

I am incredibly humbled to announce that, on January 3, 2011, I will be inaugurated as the Santa Clara County District Attorney. This change will happen because you spoke out. In this election, we spoke with the people of this county, and together, loudly and clearly, we said one word: justice.

And as long as I serve as this county's District Attorney, that word will be our guide, our inspiration, and our hallmark. Because only through a just process, and a justice-oriented approach, can we achieve just results.

I have bold plans for the District Attorney's office, and I encourage you to read my victory speech, which is copied below. I truly believe that we won this election because we were fair, truthful, and passionate about changing business as usual in this county.

Thank you for all your help, for contributing, volunteering, offering advice, and providing moral support throughout this campaign. Thank you for doing what you knew to be right. We did this together. I look forward to serving you with honesty, integrity, humility, hard work, and a wholehearted commitment to justice.

Sincerely,

Jeff Rosen

Santa Clara County District Attorney-Elect

Phu Nguyen and His Victory

Phu Nguyen (D) won easily over his challenger Joe Dovinh (D) in the primary by 18% point.  He is now ready to challenge the Republican nominee Allan Mansoor for the 68th district state assembly seat.

The election also shows that he is vulnerable in a predominately Republican district.  In the Vietnamese-American community, despite all the positive media attention, a very good marketing team to help build his image and an impressive list of supporters from the mainstream, people are not yet receptive to him.

Behind his smiling appearance, he has a reputation of being more than he actually is and quite vindictive with his jealousy of others.   And he hates people that do not agree with him.   In running against an unknown candidate who had little to no money, Phu actually had to work hard to get the votes.  Phu raised over $150,000 and during the last 2 weeks of the election, he was spending money on mailers and ads aggressively to ensure his victory over a nonserious challenger.  Of course Joe Dovinh is nothing more than a ploy by Van Tran to decimate Phu's campaign chest and it worked.  Phu is having difficulty raising money within his own community as well as in the mainstream.  The Democratic Party, similar to the Republican Party, can only provide lip-service to local races with no funding to help their own candidates.   But on the other hand, the business of money transaction to Vietnam is a lucrative one so it was no surprise to see Phu put down $100,000 of his own money into the race.  He could have loaned himself $200,000 to $300,000 but there is a $100,000 limit on how much can a candidate loan himself or herself in a state assembly race.

It will be an interesting summer to see if he could convince the Vietnamese-American voters to stand behind.  He will need every vote from his community, especially with Allan Mansoor relying on Van Tran's political machine to get him the Vietnamese-American votes.

Minh Duong In the Run-Off

With all the city council incumbents won their respective races over their challengers at 65% or more,  Madison Nguyen was forced into the run-off by a relatively newcomer- Minh Duong.  Despite Nguyen and Labor Council's negative campaign efforts and spending 2X more than her opponent,  she could not muster the victory that was expected of her.

Mercury News noted that:   "Labor allies Xavier Campos and Madison Nguyen were forced into runoffs for council seats they once were expected to win outright."

http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_15263930

In the editiorial piece, the Mercury News gave Nguyen an insight into the run-off in November:

"Incumbent Madison Nguyen finished first in District 7 as did former council aide Don Rocha in District 9. But each faces a serious conservative in the fall — Minh Duong and Larry Pegram, respectively. Rocha and Nguyen would both be wise to better clarify their positions on city spending and stake out the moderate ground."


http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_15263594

With the momentum behind him,  Minh Duong received the unequivocal endorsement from Rudy Rodriguez and Janet Nguyen last night.

 

Rudy Rodriguez came in third in the D7 election with 14% of the votes.  His supporters are crucial in the run-off for they will make up the bulk of the Hispanic votes in the race.

 

 

 
Janet Nguyen (R) is the Chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisor.   Orange County is the second largest county in California.  Janet is one of the youngest candidates ever elected to the supervisor seat in OC and is a well known Republican elected official within the Vietnamese-American community.

Cheri Pham - Newly Elected Superior Court Judge

There were not many surprises in yesterday primary election.   The  heavy-weight Vietnamese-American candidates won their respective races as expected.  Van Tran, Phu Nguyen in Little Saigon Orange County and Madison Nguyen, Minh Duong in Little Saigon San Jose survived so that they can be in for the November general election.

One bright note  is the newly elected OC Superior Court Judge  - Cheri Pham.   She has been the deputy district attorney for the county.  LSI first met her 20 years ago at her father's home, the well known and respected author and researcher Pham Kim Vinh.  

Congratulation to an old friend who is probably looking down smiling....

Vietnam Daily Newspaper Predicts Phu Le in the Run-Off

Vietnam Daily Newspaper in the last 3 weeks has been writing negative articles attacking Minh Duong's childhood, his supposedly pro-communist stand for he is not wearing the "Freedom Flag" symbol on his attire, his integrity since he refuses to pay a politcal consultant for service unrendered and how Minh Duong did not support the Little Saigon naming as well as  recall effort.  The articles are written mostly by Can Nguyen, the co-owner of the newspaper.  Can Nguyen and his wife, Quynh Thi, are the supporters of Dr. Phu Le, one of the five candidates vying for the city council seat of District 7 in San Jose.

http://www.vietnamdaily.com/?c=article&p=62946#disc

What made this week article even more interesting is the claim that VN Daily had done tracking poll the last two days.  By which method or how many people responded to the survey, the article did not detail.  But with authoratitive language, they announced that their poll has Madison Nguyen at 49.1%,  Dr. Phu Le at 25.2% and Minh Duong at 18.7%.  Their headline read - Phu Le Has A Very Great Chance of Being in the Run-Off.   

Can Nguyen is a relative newcomer to the community.   He only became active in the community during the Little Saigon controversy.  He often refers himself as Dr. Can Nguyen, Ph.D.  He, his wife and their three boys live in a multimillion dollars mansion in Los Gatos.  They own a large printing shop and one of the oldest and most profitable newspapers in the Vietnamese-American community.  

Can Nguyen and Quynh Thi are not the original owner of this profitable newspaper.  How they came about in the business is full of rumor within the Vietnamese-American media community.   One story is that the wife started out as a secretary for the original owner of the newspaper.   She had an affair with him and he ended up divorcing his wife.  Later on she allegedly dumped him for he was much older than her.  In distraught, he went to Washington DC and set himself on fire (self-immolation like Vietnamese monks in the 1960s in protesting the Vietnam War).   He died and the newspaper ended up in the hand of Quynh Thi.   The irony is that one of the most well known lawyers in San Jose happened to be in the same hotel with this poor man the night before he died and had to listen to his depressing story of betray and despair.

For almost 20 years, Quynh Thi and her newspaper stayed away from anything to do with the Vietnamese-American community in San Jose.  The newspaper rarely reported any news about community and their events and  politics.   But during the recall effort and the Little Saigon fight, the newspaper became a staunch supporter of  recall effort.   She became  a great friend of the community segment that opposed Madison Nguyen.  However the relationship was short-lived.   She and the community leadership had a big fall - out on their fight of who has the right to market NuSkin beauty product within the community and how the commission should be distributed.