Meanwhile, on the south side of the Northern California, a young financial analyst working for Cisco, Khoa Nguyen, 24, decided to put his name in a local school board race in San Jose. The graduate from San Jose State University did not even campaign or bother to have a website or lawn sign. Yet he beat out his opponent for second place by almost a hundred votes. He became a second non-incumbent Vietnamese-American to win an election in the Bay Area. His opponent, a teacher no less, raised $10,000 and received endorsement from the school board but lost by a thin margin - 6,711 to 6,634.
The Mercury News, the only major newspaper in town, lamented on " voter's inattention in local school board races." However, to Little Saigon Inside, Khoa Nguyen's victory is expected since the Beryessa Union School District is almost 45% Asian-Americans with Vietnamese-Americans made up more than 23% of the votes. This is a classical case of having a Nguyen last name will get you the votes no matter what.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
A Tale of Two Cities
Steve Ngo, a civil rights lawyer, 32, , finally won his hard earned victory for a seat on the Community College Board in the San Francisco county. The graduate from Hasting School of Law raised $75,000 and had a 50 people volunteer staff. He came in 4th place with over 87,000 votes. He reached out to every ethnic enclave in San Francisco and even had a fund raising event hosted by the Santa Clara county prosecutor Ash Kalra, the newly elected city councilmember of San Jose City. His website is quite impressive with an endorsement list of who's who in the Bay Area. From the website, one can find out that his fiancee, Tina Lee, is also a school board member of Bay Mills Community College and they will soon be married. Honeymoon destination - Hawaii....
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6 comments:
Khoa Nguyen is very good young guy. He also is a reserve police officer in San Jose. He finished his MBA at SJSU when he only around 22 years old. I saw his campaign fly at my door knob, I also saw his campaign truck from www.streetads.com ran all day long around Berryessa area just few day before the election date. I am glad people elected him.
Le Si
Me too, I saw Khoa Nguyen's campaign truck was running around on the very croweded parking lot of the Costco store. The truck was beautifull and very attractive to viewers. I never see anyone campaign this way. The truck tell all about him, that was very weird campaign, very different. I think Khoa Nguyen is very smart and why he elected. Who read the lawn signs ?????
Truong Lap
Khoa Nguyen is young and smart...."did not even campaign or bother to have a website or lawn sign." Crazy!#%^!!?? This method is very old and makes the city a dirty look, that's why Khoa don't even use this. Why Khoa has to be the same. Khoa has an awesome, new, unique, technology advertising campaign which no body can even think about this: THE TRUCK. That why Khoa won. Our new President is young and smart. Keep it up Khoa!!!Congratulations!!!
There are, what, a hundred thousand Nguyens in SJ? And how come not all of them are on the school board?
So, it's not true that Khoa Nguyen got elected on the strength of his last name alone.
No. He got elected on the strength of his last name AND the foresight to file his candidacy.
Can't win if you don't play.
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