Little Saigon Inside

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Candidate Mailers for November 2010 Election (Sanchez, Tran, Phu Nguyen, etc..)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Van Tran vs. Loretta Sanchez - A Street Brawl

According to an article by Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative news agency, Van Tran is trying his best to silent his critics in the media in the Vietnamese-American community. In this latest episode of silencing the media, it is alleged that he took out the Long Vo's radio show and forced the show to be cancelled.

This sounds like a familar tactics that Van Tran used against Janet Nguyen in 2008 and 2007. His influence as the "Godfather" is powerful in the Vietnamese-American community, especially with the print and radio media. Janet Nguyen could not even buy an ad in both Viet Bao or Nguoi Viet in 2008 in response to some of Van Tran's attack against her. Both of the newspapers would print Van Tran's attack on Janet Nguyen as communist sympathizer but they refused to allow Janet Nguyen to answer the false charges.

Now the "Godfather" is up to his old trick again. See the excerpt of the investigative piece below:

Controversy Surrounds a Now-Silent Little Saigon Radio Show

Posted: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:10 am
Updated: 1:34 pm, Wed Oct 13, 2010.

NORBERTO SANTANA, JR.
0 comments
http://voiceofoc.org/oc_central/garden_grove/article_7205e986-d6f6-11df-8f25-001cc4c002e0.html

Every day dozens of broadcasters go on the airwaves in Little Saigon -- which sits in parts of Garden Grove and Westminster --- and talk politics. The news programs, which rent time by the hour, have dedicated Vietnamese-language audiences and the potential to sway elections.

For more than 20 years, Long Vo has been one of the local stalwarts in this arena. His "Vietnamese in California" show has received commendations from the Republican Party of Orange County as well as Democratic lawmakers.

But on Sept. 29, his show was yanked off the air.

The reason given by the station is that Vo was taken off AM 1190 because he refused to sign the station's newly constituted pledge regarding what can and can't be said on air about politicians.

Vo, who was a political prisoner for five years in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, said he was told that the shut down was ordered by Republican state Assemblyman Van Tran, who is in a tough battle with Democrat Loretta Sanchez for her 47th District seat in the U.S. Congress.

Tran, Little Saigon's most recognizable and powerful politician, denies having anything to do with the shutdown of Vo's show. And Bob Hastings, who manages the station owned by Salem Communications, backs up Tran. Hastings said the station is requiring all show hosts, not just Vo, to sign the new pledge.

Regardless of whose version is closer to the truth, the controversy shows just how much of a street brawl the race between Tran and Sanchez has become.

Vo and others say the timing of the station's new pledge is too coincidental to not have been done on Tran's behalf. There are also those who say that the rhetoric on the 4th District race hasn't changed on the pro-Tran news broadcasts.

On Sept. 29, Vo hosted a call-in program on AM 1190 that began with him reading a story from the Voice of America on recent allegations that ethnicity had become an overriding issue in the race. Sanchez was criticized for remarks on Spanish-language TV, saying that Vietnamese were trying to take the congressional seat away from Latinos.

Vo said callers to his program criticized Republican nominee Tran but didn't slander him. Other Vietnamese language speakers who have listened to a reproduction of the broadcast verify Vo's comments.

Yet the morning after the broadcast aired, Vo said he got a call from a broker who sells time to broadcasters, such as himself, who put their news shows on commercial radio stations.

Vo said the broker, Chan Phan, told him that the heat was on and that Tran's supporters were putting pressure on him to keep the broadcasts under wraps. Unless Vo agreed to cease talking about the 47th Congressional District, he would not be allowed back on the air.

Phan did not return calls for comment. Tran knows about the situation with Vo but denies making any phone calls to the station to complain about Vo's broadcasts.

Yet soon thereafter, Vo said he was faxed an amended policy from the radio station that precluded him from "denigration of any person, whether a private citizen or public figure" over the airwaves.

Vo refused to sign the agreement and so the night of Sept. 30 his program went silent from its usual timeslot of midnight to 5 a.m.

"We have the rights to have freedom of speech," Vo said. "This is totally unfair having my radio station cut when I talk about the race while the others are not. This is very un-American."...........................................

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.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Van Tran Desparately Forcing Janet Nguyen To Endorse Him

LSI received this email trail by State AssemblymanVan Tran asking Trung Nguyen (the Photoshop Candidate) and Lan Nguyen (Van's henchman who called Janet Nguyen communist) to distribute to everybody right away. It announced a press conference to be hold by Janet Nguyen with Van Tran. This is of course with the anticipation to announce her support for Van Tran

The only problem is that County Supervisor Chair Janet Nguyen was not informed and she is up to now has not plan to neither do any press conference with Van Tran nor alone calling a pressing conference for Van Tran

Janet Nguyen is being forced by Republican leaders into endorsing Van Tran. She needs their money for her campaign in 2012. She is well recognized in D47 with the Vietnamese-American voters as well as mainstream voters. Of course she has much higher favorable rating than Van Tran.

Van Tran has a 39% unfavorable rating in D47. Van Tran is forcing her hand with his dirty politics, basically blackmail her into endorsing him

However, this kind of game might back fire with the voters, especially with Vietnamese-American voters who will make up about 12% of the votes in November. They either vote against Van Tran or don't go to vote for he brings such bad taste in their mouth.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
----- Forwarded Message ----

From: Van

To: George Andrews

Cc: Nguyen Quoc Lan ; VVV ; Trung Quang Nguyen ; Phat Luu ; minhgiang pham

Sent: Fri, October 8, 2010 3:22:20 PM

Subject: Re: Media Advisory: OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen to Hold Press Availability with Congressional Candidate Van Tran (CA-47)

Attached is a "little" Friday Surprise for all of you. PleAd distribuw far and wide ASAP, in time for tomorrow event at 9:00 am

Sent from my iPhone

Van Tran

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Friday, October 1, 2010

Minh Duong vs. Madison Nguyen

Last week, there was a candidate forum for the upcoming election held at the Santa Clara County Building. The forum was designed for county supervisor and city council candidates to discuss local issues affecting the voters. It also allowed the voters to ask direct questions to the candidates on issues affecting their neighborhoods. One of the organizers was Vic Aljouni, the well known political consultant of Mayor Reed. The moderator was Scott Herhold, a well respected columnist of the Mercury News.

Minh Duong was invited as well as the incumbent City Councilmember Madison Nguyen. At the forum, only Minh Duong showed up to represent candidates in D7.

When came D7 candidate turn, Minh Duong introduced himself and then Scott Herhold began: " Thank you. Let’s have some questions from the audience here. Minh does not have an opponent here, so we’re letting him off a little bit easy."

Minh Duong politely responsed: " Actually, I was looking forward to…debating with my opponent. I have challenged my opponent to three debates. One in the General, one in the Latino community and one in the Vietnamese community…and I…I have to say this…even whether it be in the parking lot or a coffee shop…I am willing to…you know…show respect to our residents and our voters to let them know what we…what we stand for and our differences…and it is time…you know, and who is the better person this time around to serve on the City Council for District 7. So, again, I would like to spread that challenge again to my opponent."

Part of the forum discussion can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2K-9xhIFbg

Minh Duong then proceeded to distinguish himself as hard working small businessman who has real life experience of the economic hardship of the people and not a career politician (He himself as a businessman struggling just like everybody else in this economic depression). He mentioned that Madison Nguyen received her support from Labor and a lot of her funding are from out-of state special interest groups who have no interest in the lives of the D7 citizens.

He mentioned that we need a change in our District 7 leadership. For the last 5 years, the leadership in office is only interested in serving special interest groups at the taxpayers' expense. While taxpayers are being taxed more than ever to pay for unsustainable benefits and wages, residents are experiencing tremendous cut back on city services. Nevertheless, the current leadership continues to allow out-of-state and local special interest groups to control city politics and waste millions of taxpayer money for their own personal agenda.

Minh Duong is running for he believes that thing cannot be business as usual, there is a public outcry in D7 (eventhough ignore by the main stream press), and the only way to change is to replace Madison Nguyen.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Van Tran vs. Loretta Sanchez

As the election heating up, Van Tran is taking the race issue to Loretta Sanchez. His right hand person Lan Nguyen is on radio calling Vietnamese to demonstrate against Sanchez this Saturday (October 2) while demanding that Sanchez should apologize to Van Tran personally. The sin is for suggesting that Van Tran is anti-immigration and that she is does not want to have the seat to be " taken away by Vietnamese and Republican". What Loretta Sanchez meant to say was "not to have the seat taken away by Vietnamese and Republican supporters of Van Tran" as she issued an apology to the community.

Meanwhile, Van Tran is recycling his well used slogan " Vietnamese should only vote for Vietnamese candidates" in the his 24-hour radio show network. Van needs to get his Vietnamese base to vote for him. A lot of them are wary of him since they despise his ambition to be the "Godfather of the Vietnamese-American politics". And his red-baiting tactics against County Supervisor Chair Janet Nguyen gives him the notoriety of a sleazy politician. Sanchez meanwhile has done an excellent job in nurturing the Vietnamese votes with her anti-communist stand. Two of her official staff are Vietnamese-Americans.

It is ironic that two candidates with immigrant background is fighting over who is browner than the other in order to get the votes of the ethnic groups.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Minh Duong Received Endorsement from County Supervisor Dave Cortese

Over the weekend at a fund raising event for charity, Minh Duong was officially endorsed by Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese. He encouraged all voters in D7 to vote for Minh Duong for he has what it takes to bring needed change to the city. Along with the recent endorsement from Lt. Governor Maldonado, Minh Duong is building up his momentum to face the incumbent Madison Nguyen who is backed by Labor Unions. Nguyen is the favorite to win the election with her overwhelming advantage of campaign money (which came from donation mostly from out-of-state special interest groups). Her campaign theme is to maintain the current course for the city. On the other hand, Minh Duong advocates new changes to the unsustainable fiscal policy that so far have resulted in taxpayers paying more taxes into a city government full of abuses by Labor Unions and special interest groups while receiving less service than ever.