Minh Duong vs. Madison Nguyen, The Final Stretch

So it comes down the final three weeks of a boring D7 city council race to see whether the controversial incumbent Madison Nguyen deserves another 4 years.    Despite her barrage of negative campaigns on the radio, Vietnamese-American newspapers  and mailers, the voters so far apparently are not convinced.   Minh Duong is being portrayed as a pro-communist, negatively as a struggling businessman trying to keep his business alive and about his personal lives from the car he drives to the suit and tie he wears.

Yet, the latest rolling poll done by the Asian-American Poll Media shows that Duong is at 47% and Nguyen is at 44%.  The margin of error is +/- 5%.   The survey was done by telephone with a representative sample of 125 most likely voters among  14,000 registered voters in D7 whom are considered likely to vote in the 2010 election.

This is a suprising result since so far in the race,  Nguyen has refused to talk about issues facing the people of D7.  She refused to debate her opponents no matter what, when, where.  Instead she and the Mercury News, the only newspaper in town, have chosen to make Minh Duong's small business enterprise and his struggle to keep it afloat a central  issue in the race.   By going negative on her opponent's personal issues and refusing to discuss real issues concerning to the D7 citizens, she is hoping to hide her shortcomings. 

But this has backfire,  to a lot of people in this economic down turn, they think Minh Duong's struggle represents their struggles.  And they don't need a city councilmember and a newspaper to politicize it and paint it as a shameful thing.    After all, this country economic backbone is being built on entrepeneurs and small business people who are willing to take risks to create jobs for the community.  It is historically the government, especially here in San Jose, that always put heavy burdens on the small business people with high taxes and suffocating regulations. 

The Mercury News never made an issue of Rose Herrera's bankruptcy, the lawsuit from her creditors on the debt that she owed  during her race for city council in 2008.   And  D5 candidate Magdalene Carrasco's financial struggle is portrayed by the Merc as a positve for it shows that she can relate to the people's economic plight. 

It is comical to note that Nguyen's negative campaign flyer sent to the voters the day after the latest Mercury News article attacking Minh Duong on personal issues has the same comparison points.  To some of the voters, it was as if both the newspaper and Nguyen are cooperatively running the same negative campaign against Duong.  

Minh Duong's message meanwhile is " A Time To Change". 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHUsq8UuYQo


As an elected official, Nguyen is controversial with her decision to support special interest groups.  She received her election money from out-of-town special interest groups.  She has shown that she will do anything to get elected even though her talks and promises are empty after the election.  During her term, she has consistently voted with Labor Unions in supporting programs that have costed tax payers money without any benefits.  It was not until the result of the primary where she only received 42% of the votes despite spending 2 times more money than her opponents combined that she realized that she needed to play a different tune.   Whether the voters will believe her or not, it will be decided at the poll in November. 

The question the voters need to ask is what has she done for them in the last 5 years besides less services, higher taxes and empty promises and why she is receiving so much money from out-of-town people.