The Making of Garden Grove City Mayor Bao Nguyen

Bao Nguyen, who won the  mayoral race 10 months ago by 15 votes largely on the strength of the Vietnamese-American voters,  has been making headlines lately.

First, he decided to come out as the first gay Vietnamese-American elected official at the same time as he declared himself a congressional candidate to replace Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.  Two weeks later, he shared with  an on-duty cop late at night in front of his house how he despises his fellow councilmen Phat Bui and Steve Jones.   The conversation was recorded by the policeman.  

To many Vietnamese-Americans, he is quite arrogant when he refused to ask Riverside City to rescind the sister-relationship with a city in Vietnam.

He does not have a chance in the congressional race since he could not raise money and he does not even live in the district.   He will also have a tough time in the re-election.   Phat Bui and Steve Jones will likely run for the mayoral office.  

Potential Candidates for San Jose City D8

Now we know that Attorney Jimmy Nguyen has declared himself to be the front runner (via Mercury News) in the city council race for D8, who else is considering?

Litigator Jenny Do has mentioned her intention.   Meanwhile, businesswoman Denise Belisle is rumored to be thinking hard about a possible run.  Jim Zito is another potential candidate that has his name floating in the mix.  But at the end of the day, the most prominent name is still Pattie Cortese. She is motivated to run before she left for her Italy vacation.  

Anyway, it is too early to tell for the campaign cannot be official until December when the fund raising can begin.  This is a district with high voter turnout.  In 2012, there were close to 32,000 ballots cast.  In comparison, D7 had no more than 15,000 ballots cast.

LSI expects the race to have at least 5 - 6 candidates.