Cindy Chavez vs. Matt Mahan, An Unprecedented Campaign for Vietnamese Votes

 

Prologue:  A translated rambling commentary from Brian Do in his biweekly attack against Cindy Chavez on a Youtube show: “I don't know where they stand, Cindy Chavez and her groups are left wing with special privileges.   We left Vietnam, immigrated here to fight the communists, partly because we don't want the government to decide for us, we want a free voice.  We left Vietnam because we don't want any the government officials to decide for whom they can give or for whom they can help, they hold power here. Cindy Chavez and her privileged faction are truly a left-wing group. Their political positions are completely contrary to the basic interests that our Vietnamese community aspires to”

In the San Jose mayoral race replacing term limit Mayor Sam Liccardo, the fight for the Vietnamese votes has been quite heated so far with both SCC Supervisor Cindy Chavez and Councilmember Matt Mahan working hard to persuade the voters.   Currently, the conventional wisdom is Mahan has done a good job creating winds behind his back trying to close the gap in the Vietnamese community.  He is benefiting from aggressive tactics executed by his ardent supporters and Vietnamese campaigners.  It is impressive considering that he is an unknown in the community and has not shown his supports or efforts that would in any ways benefit the community during his time in office. Meanwhile Chavez is a familiar face with strong ties and long records of supporting the community for years. 

Throughout the campaign, Brian Do, a school board member of Eastside Union School District and a campaigner for Mahan, has been consistenly online and radio shows  poking at Chavez on many issues whether real or imaginary.  Basically, a clever strategy of  throwing everything under the sink and hoping some will stick:  

1.     She is left wing and that would make her against the “Vietnamese people’s interests”, and she only cares about "her people and her community".

2.     Chavez is causing crime increase.  By following the state policy enacted during the pandemic to  ease crowding in county jail, she has encouraged more crimes to be committed.   The policy allowed low level offenders of nonviolent crimes to be released while waiting for court order dates.   Do claimed   that with this policy “she allowed criminals to be released” and “the people of her community” after being released would  commit more crimes in the Vietnamese community, specifically in Little Saigon, as well as in other communities.  

3.    Chavez has distributed funding disproportionately to “her people” than to the  Vietnamese community.  If you vote for her, the Vietnamese will get minimal to nothing for our rightful "piece of the pie”.  Do would provide examples of how the county is not providing the “fair share” of social services to the Vietnamese people while “her community” would have all the privileges or more.  June Tran, a Mahan’s fervent supporter, recently went on a Youtube interview to level charges that Chavez is spending wastefully and yet not for the benefits of the Vietnamese community.   The attacks are viewed by some as race baiting with the idea somehow Matt Mahan will take care of the  Vietnamese community better than Chavez for she is favored other ethnic groups, mostly implying Hispanic.

4.     For two straight weeks, the local newspaper Calitoday ran paid articles denouncing Chavez for her support of abortion and Proposition 1 which would support the constitution amendment for the women’s right to choose.    

Supporters of Chavez who are often less vocal and have been slow to respond finally had enough of the twisted misinformation and baseless claims.  They pointed out:

 A.  Mahan is a Democratic liberal candidate with a liberal social agenda including supporting and funding abortion as he signed an open letter along with 77 other elected officials in the Bay Area urging Governor Newsom to support and funding abortion in California.  

 B. Chavez is giving more funding to “her community or to her people” than the Vietnamese community.  There is no such proof.   The county government budgeted funding to serve all people and the Vietnamese community is being equally served.  And to Chavez credit, her funding of the Vietnamese-American Service Center is a testament of her unwavering support of the community for the last 10 years.

      But being persistent, Mahan's supporters continue to claim that the Vietnamese community received below average healthcare supports during the COVID-19 pandemic while the other communities received better services. Both ICAN and VIVO, the two largest and oldest Vietnamese American nonprofit establishments serving the community on health care and social services in the last 40 years rebuked such outrageous fallacies:   

Quyen Vuong,  ICAN Executive Director said: “For many years, Supervisory Cindy Chavez has been a true friend, advocate and supporter of the Vietnamese community.  During the pandemic, she provided outreach and engagement funding to ICAN and many other organizations and media outlets to keep the Vietnamese community informed about covid vaccines to protect their health.  Sup. Chavez also supported the efforts to have the public health COVID website be done in Vietnamese, with weekly updates posted on Youtube from the County in Vietnamese about the covid situation, and county staff going on Vietnamese media outlets to stay connected with the community. Under her leadership and support, the construction and planning of the Vietnamese American Service Center continued to move forward in spite of the pandemic, so it could open its door as planned in early 2022.   We need a mayor who is truly committed to improving our lives and livelihood while understanding and respecting our culture and traditions.”

 

Bao Trieu, Chair and co-founder of VIVO stated:  “The Board of Supervisors along with the leadership of Supervisor Cindy Chavez has been very supportive of the Vietnamese community through many effective outreach and social programs for seniors, homeless and low-income families.  Her pro-active efforts helped save many lives in the county during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The  county provided resources adequately to all communities on prevention education, providing vaccines and priority treatment and testing were unprecedented in California. VIVO is proud to be part of the efforts as the oldest Vietnamese-American nonprofit organization that provide essential health and social supports to disadvantaged and hard to reach communities."

 

C.  The  crime issue is mostly a problem with Mayor Sam Liccardo and the City Council for a long time not willing to provide adequate budget to bolster the police force where there were over 200 police officers either left the force or retired without being filled.   Mayor Liccardo and the City Council including Mahan with their Black Lives Matter supports showed their unity and doing the right thing against institutionalized racism.  However, they compounded the problem that long has been ignored which is the inadequate funding of police and fire departments.  As San Jose residents can attest, if you call 911 for non-violent crimes, the police department would be reluctant to send officers to the scene due to manpower shortage.  Unfortunately, the county government has no jurisdiction on city’s law enforcement.

Some Vietnamese supporters of Mahan and their attacks using race baiting tactic playing Vietnamese voters that somehow as a Hispanic, Chavez will provide more funding and better social benefits to Hispanic and other ethnic groups than Vietnamese.  The message is by voting for Matt Mahan, the Vietnamese community will receive better favors.   Some people would call this is a racist message at its core.  While a few Vietnamese people are saying that Matt Mahan should denounce these intolerable baseless claims trying to create fears & hatred and speak up against such divisive politics using race.  

 By allowing these extreme supporters to continue using race baiting tactics,  their negative and destructive noises now overshadow Mahan's cultivated image of not politics as usual and thoughtful personality. 

 

An Unfortunate Incident

Last weekend, during the monthly flag raising ceremony at the Viet Heritage Garden,  Brian Do,  June Tran and other  Mahan’s supporters decided to stage a political stun to embarrassed Chavez and her staff.   For years, the ceremony is non-political and always an event reserved to honor and remember the plight of freedom and the fight against communism.  It is in public park where political rallies and campaigns are not allowed by city policy.   Both Chavez and Mahan stopped by to pay respect and join the ceremony. 

Mahan came together with Brian Do, June Tran, and 5 others.  His supporters had with them signs denouncing Chavez for sending a cease and desist letter to Brian Do for implying that she is a communist sympathizer.  To them,  this is a violation of his free speech.  They hid the signs so the organizers would not see and went inside the park.   Now whether Mahan knew about this protest stun is not known.  He was there for a short time and left quickly before his supporters carried out the plan. They were trying to unfurl their signs while Chavez was speaking but could not do it in time.   So as Chavez departed, they ran out to the gate and started chanting and denouncing her. 

 Brian Do then went back in the park and started attacking Chavez.  He accused her of being a bully and trying to silent the voices of the community.  He claimed that he is a "political victim".    He was quickly removed from the stage and  people were yelling at him to leave.    A lot of people were taken by surprise and offended since this is the day reserved for paying respect and in a public area not allowed by the city for political campaign and shenanigan.

Mr. Son Nguyen said: “ Brian Do is disrespectful and many people here are upset.  He, June Tran and supporters took advantage of the ceremonial event and turned it into a political circus for their own political gains.  Matt owes the community an apology”.  

Mrs. Loan commented: “We will file a complaint to the city and ask them to ban Matt and his supporters from the park.   Matt is violating his own city policy of using public places for political gain and creating chaos and division at a ceremonial event."

Other people at the event spoke up: “This reflects the campaign tactic of Matt, creating division, stirring hatred among ourselves.  With Brian Do and June Tran stirring things up to create chaos and discontent, it has turned a reverend event of the community for the last 10 years into a farce for their political agenda.   It is a very sad day for the community”

Conventional wisdom would indicate Chavez is the favorite in the Vietnamese community based on her track record.  But with  the strong supports of Mayor Liccardo, Madison Nguyen and her supporters, Mahan has made a  showing in the community by riding on a momentum of dividing the community using baseless claims to seed false fears and uncertainties in the community.  Some people in the community think this is a street fight politics and if history repeats itself, it will bring back memories to  those in the community old enough to live through the divisiveness era manufactured purposely for political gains by Madison Nguyen.

LSI predicts a very close race with a separation of less than 2,000 votes between winner and loser.   Let us put up a chair to watch an unprecedented campaign brawl in the history of San Jose mayoral race.