Thursday, June 14, 2012

Long Pham vs. Joe Dovinh, Can We Make Peace Now?

Long Pham,  a perennial Republican candidate for the state assemblyman seat in Orange County, is still mad at Joe Dovinh (D) for taking away some of the Vietnamese-American votes that could have been his.  It is such a close race for second place that  300 - 400 extra votes could have propelled him into the runoff against Troy Edgar.

Long Pham had run against Van Tran in two previous races; he also ran against Allan Mansoor who was endorsed by Van Tran.   Of course he lost by a landslide in each of these elections.   The lost against Mansoor in 2010 primary was particularly bitter since early in the same year he donated $2,000 to Tran's campaign and publicly announced his support for Van Tran and his congressional candidacy.   Van Tran simply took his money and ignored him.

So in 2012 with Diep Truong bowing out,  Pham thought that he would have a very good chance to at least be in the runoff.   He dropped $100,000 of his own money into the race.   He went on the offensive against Joe Dovinh by labeling him a communist sympathizer and refused to debate Dovinh in a local Vietnamese community forum.  He said:" I don't debate with candidate who has a pro-communist view point".

It is ironic since in the  Democratic primary for state assembly in 2010, Joe Dovinh was calling Phu Nguyen a communist because he has a business in Vietnam.  Of course Dovinh lost to Phu Nguyen. 

Long Pham is an interesting candidate for he always has a hard time expressing himself in Vietnamese of issues except for the fact that he hates the communist.   But you have to admire his persistence.   He will be putting his name again in 2014, 2016 and so on.   




1 comment:

Unknown said...

Republicans are scumbags!

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