Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Madison Nguyen and Dina Nguyen Plotting for Supervisor Seats

The primary election is just over less than a week, and the pundits are already predicting upcoming political moves.   So from the corners of many Viet coffee bars here in San Jose and Garden Grove, here are what LSI had overheard (Disclaimer:  It was difficult to listen to some of these conversations while being constantly distracted with fully and partly nude waitresses in their high heels).

- Madison Nguyen will likely run for the Santa Clara County supervisor in D3 in 2015 if the current supervisor, Dave Cortese, wins the mayoral race in November.   This time, she will likely get the endorsement from Mayor Chuck Reed.  San Jose D4 is Reed's district and it is part of the the county D1.    Nguyen can be quite vindictive as some of her close friends already know.   She was and still is very upset when Reed decided not to endorse her in the mayoral race even though she turned her back against Labor just for him.   But she is also a smart politician and knows how to move forward.

This is actually a favorable race for her if the Vietnamese-American voters would support her.  However, history has shown that she will not get the Vietnamese-American votes so she will have to throw her fortune in the wind again and see how far it will carry.

Her opponent (s) will mostly likely  be  Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves.  Other names keep  surfacing including Rose H. and Daisy C.

- Dina Nguyen, the former Garden Grove councilmember, has her eye on Janet Nguyen's seat of OC supervisor D1.  She lost the supervisor race to Janet in 2008.  If Janet wins the state senatorial race this November, a special election will be held in Feb 2015 for a winner-take-all election.  The current GC councilmember, Chris Phan, will no doubt put his hat in the ring.   Of course, former assemblyman Van Tran, is no dummy and he can  see a golden opportunity when it appears.   He knows that even with three Vietnamese candidates, the chance is still there for one of them to win because  D1 is so heavily dominated with Vietnamese-American voters.  Janet Nguyen won election despite being challenged by 2 Vietnamese candidates.  Matter of fact, none of the Hispanic candidates made the top two.

Another interesting candidate seems to be emerging is another former Garden Grove councilmember, Andrew Do.  He is a strong candidate and respected by the community.

Of course all of these are coffee bar talks and are irrelevant if Dave Cortese and Janet Nguyen both lose in the runoff.   Both Madison and Dina are hoping that is not the case since these are the needed openings for them to salvage their political career.  

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Ready for Another Round of Mike Honda vs. Rho Khanna

LSI is not sure what is the going on with Rho Khanna's campaign but they sure know how to spin a terrible trouncing.   Right after the election, a mass email campaign already started by Khanna depicting Honda as a weak candidate since he only won 49% of the total votes in a 4-person race.  

Up till the primary election, LSI was told by his people that he had been getting a lot of supports from tens of thousands of phone calls and weekly town hall meetings with his voters for the last one year.   Surprisingly, he could not even beat Honda in his own hometown and county.  Khanna lost by almost 19 points to Honda in Alameda County.  He did worse in Santa Clara County with a 24 points difference.

Khanna wants badly the Vietnamese-American votes and is trying his best to hitch a free ride on the coattail of attorney Tam Nguyen's popularity in the community.  However, his lack of record working and supporting  the Vietnamese-American community is being scrutinized within the community.  

In general, the conventional wisdom is that Khanna made a wrong impression in the primary with the overall voting population. 

The unscientific feedback that LSI received so far is the typical Bay Area voters do not really care for the negative attacks that are borderline the truth against an incumbent like Mike Honda, a respected figure who came across as a caring and affable grandfather.   The barrage of negative attacks in the primary did not stick and left voters with bad taste in their mouth. 



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