Van Tran and Fund Raising

Van Tran two weeks ago flooded the Vietnamese-American media and his supporters with a fund raising announcement at Original Mike's. The event was also noted by OC Register.

Invited keynote speaker was Congressman Kevin McCarthy, Chief Deputy Whip. The guests of honors listed on the flyers were Congressmen Ken Calvert, John Campbell, Gary Miller, Dana Rohrabacher and Ed Royce.

The restaurtant was told to expect about 250 people.

The event ended up with about 35 people. Kevin McCarthy did not show up. The MC (Carlos Bustamante of Santa Ana) did not mentioned anything about Kevin McCarthy and his absence. Tran spoke about his background and emphasized his 75% ID recognition in the Vietnamese-American community. The irony is that there were about 10 Vietnamese-Americans at the event. They did not get introduced by the MC or recognized by Van Tran. The controversial Diep Truong and Andy Quach did not dare to be there.

Hugh Nguyen, the county clerk OC Recorder candidate, paid $150 to attend the event, hoping to get Van Tran's endorsement. He did not get introduced or recognized by Van Tran or his people. Hugh Nguyen however tried his best to mingle and make sure that the VIPs know that he is a supporter of Van Tran.

Long Pham, the forever assemblyman candidate (this would be his 4th attempt to run for state assembly) who thought he would get Van Tran's endorsement by giving Van $1,000 was not there. Long Pham found out after giving the money that Van, instead of supporting him, decided to support a viable candidate - Allan Mansoor.

The whisper is loud in Little Saigon OC that Van Tran is being funded by big businessmen who has very close tie with the communist government.

The voters are now questioning Van Tran and his rhetorics. Van Tran major supporters from the community so far are - Frank Jao with his multimillion dollars investment in commercial real estate in Vietnam, David Duong and Victor Duong with their public meeting with the then Prime Minister Phan van Khai to sign business contracts, and of course there is Hoang Kieu who just recently received the highest recognition by the communist government for bringing businesses to Vietnam.

With a credential of strong anti-communist and unequivocal supporter of freedom and democracy, Van Tran has a lot of explaining to do in the next few months to the community why he is receiving money from Vietnamese-Chinese big businesmen who do not view the communist government as anything more than a business partner.