It’s a Nguyen/Nguyen Situation for Republicans

14 Comments

1. Just a quick follow up to my other post. In theory, it is possible that Umberg could pull ahead. But somehow, I have trouble seeing it happen because to get there; Umberg would need to get far more than 50 % of the remaining votes. Precinct votes are running about 27.5% for Umberg.

2. Ain’t that the truth. Now if only Mark Rosen didn’t make his vanity run, and we focused on what was happening with the Viet absentee votes earlier, and we didn’t waste so much time on Bustamante…

   Dammit, we Dems could have done better.

   : (

3. I think we may need to give credit where credit is due here. The Vietnamese community turned out for Vietnamese candidates and dominated this election. Imagine, if they only had one candidate.

   This is not so much a Democratic loss, or a loss for the Republican machine. Rather this is a win for the Vietnamese community.

   Andrew, I am with you, I wish Mark had been talked out of running, but that was simply not going to happen. Mark Rosen committed to the race early on and was not about to back down. That said, there is no guarantee that the votes the Rosen received would have gone to Umberg.

4. A few observations:
   As far as I’m concerned, County employees, like the Democratic Party screwed themselves. They backed a guy few voters could stomach. And now we will all have to incur the wrath of whomever wins for the next two years.
   As far as Mark Rosen’s “vanity,” don’t kid yourself Andrew. You can’t add Rosen’s total to Umberg’s in order to make this claim. I’d venture to guess that most of the folks who voted for Rosen did so because they wanted to vote for a Democrat, but had a strong dislike for Umberg. Had Rosen not been in the race, his votes would have gone to Bustamante or one of the Nguyens.
   As for the decision not to go after Vietnamese absentee voters earlier, that was indeed a bad one. But it would be OK if the Umberg campaign and Democratic Party had a strong Vietnamese outreach (with people who actually SPEAK Vietnamese). But Umberg and the Democrats have done little (nearly nothing) to create good will in the Vietnamese community in the last few years. Lesson learned (I hope).
   Heads should roll after this result. I speak for many in saying I think the first should be Barbaro’s.

5. Well, that’s where we really screwed ourselves:

   WHERE THE HELL WERE WE IN THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY?

   Why the hell did we just sit back and allow The Two Nguyens to go after Viet absentee votes? Why did we ignore what was happening in Garden Grove and Westminster? Perhaps I was initially a little hard on Rosen, but I still stick with my feeling that we really screwed up in ignoring The Nguyens to waste all that time on Bustamante.

6. Calm down Andrew.

   The Democrats and Tom Umberg did not ignore the Vietnamese community. The Vietnamese community would not have turned out for Umberg, Rosen, or Diaz in this race no matter how much effort we dumped into the community. They were simply not the focus of the campaign.

   The Vietnamese community backs candidates they know, or think they know. But when you pit Vietnamese candidates against those who are not, the result is that the majority of those votes will go to the Vietnamese candidates.

   Loretta Sanchez continues to cultivate a strong relationship with the Vietnamese community and that has been very successful. A strong Vietnamese candidate could however still give her a pretty good run. I would watch out for Janet Nguyen and Van Tran to run against each other for the Republican nomination for the 47th Congressional seat in 2010.

   I expect that Trung Nguyen will run for the 47th in the 2008 Republican Primary, and lose the general election by a very small percentage, paving the way for Janet and Van in 2010.

7. Well Andrew, first I’d like to point out that there are thousands of Vietnamese voters who live in Santa Ana. Mostly west of the river.
   And take a close look at your candidate Umberg. In his time in the Assembly, how much outreach was done to the Vietnamese community in the 69th? Not much. How many Vietnamese-fluent field reps and caseworkers were hired in his district office? How many worked for Tom in Sacramento? Granted, there was a significant ethnic pride issue here, but some outreach would have held Dem and DTS (mostly younger) Vietnamese voters who have already shown an independent streak. A last minute VBM campaign wasn’t going to do it.

8. Yes, Publius, you have a good point there. We should not have just done a last-minute VBM campaign…
   We should have been out there EARLY ON, cultivating a strong relationship with the Vietnamese community like Loretta Sanchez has, and Lou Correa has. Yes, they’ve been quite successful in Central OC because they’ve actually paid attention to Vietnamese concerns.

   And yes, Chris, you’re most likely correct that we couldn’t have won over two strong Vietnamese GOPers… But we still did not have to lose so badly by just ignoring them. That is our grand mistake, and I hope we don’t make it again.

   : (

9. Publius-

   While the Dems did not win, I think it is crazy to say Barbaro should go. For the first time the DPOC had its own field campaign. While everyone can Monday morning quarterback strategy I think the Democratic Party in Orange County is on the right (left) track.

   Timbo

10. Andrew,

    You may recall that two Democrats emerged from the March 2004 Supervisor Primary. Broadwater and Correa. Without the Labor support Correa would not have been able to win in the 1st District General election.

    As far as the 34th is concerned, I do not agree with the premise that Umberg would heave lost the general. Without the heavy hit of the IE’s in the Primary, Umberg would not have been nearly as damaged for the general. In that district, Lou also has negatives.

    My point is that despite his assurances to Labor that he would not jump ship, Lou did. That fact placed the Dems in the position of facing a low turnout special election in the 1st District. The combined percentage of votes for both Nguyens is 48.3%. That share would be even less in a general election.

    Focusing resources on votes that you cannot get is a waste of resources. There was a general push that went to all voters that did result in some votes from the Vietnamese community for Umberg. And again the Vietnamese community was targeted heavily by the Nguyens. The amount of resources that would be necessary to combat that effort was not there. They were not ignored by Umberg, Labor, or the DPOC; their votes were simply not possible to get.

    Also, we can thank the Republican IE’s that targeted attacks on Umberg, distorting his record, and attacking his vote in favor of Marriage Equality. Tom Umberg had some cross appeal among moderate Republicans, the money spent by the GOP attacking his support for equality for all Californians was a factor in turning those voters away.

    Finally, in a low turnout election it is motivated voters who show up and vote. This special election was not motivating enough for the average voter to move them to the polls. As we saw with Lou Correa in the general election, the votes for Democrats are votes at the polls, not the mailbox.

    We need to work on that and voter registration, rather than dream that we could have motivated enough Vietnamese voters away from Vietnamese candidates to make a difference.

11. Publius,

    No heads should roll here. The effort and work that was done by the Democratic Party of Orange County is unprecedented. This was a special election and we were able to motivate thousands of hours of volunteer effort. Our candidate of choice did not win, but that does not in any way translate into a failure for us.

    We need to continue to focus on building up our infrastructure and finding the right Democrat in 2008 to challenge whichever Nguyen prevails.

12. As a Vietnamese-American and as one of the few Democrats in this community, I agree that a last minute push to grab Vietnamese voters would have been nearly impossible. Not to say we should ignore the population, it’s just there’s been no real Demoratic push in this community by the party as long as I can remember. The only real outreach to the community has been by the Party’s candidates Lou and Loretta. There’s been no cultivation of Democratic ideals or even information to what the Democratic party really is or what it stands for. Attempts at outreach now will be far behind the GOP’s, but I suppose it’s better than never. Republicans have been at Tet festival year after year with free pencils, pens, and stickers since I was a kid.

    People fail to understand that the identification amongst Vietnamese-Americans with their cultural heritage and ethnicity supersede ideology. They vote Vietnamese, not Republican or Democrat, words that I heard from the elderly Vietnamese when I tried to help Tom over the last few weekends. After volunteering, was amazed to see that DPOC could pull the kind of volunteer turn out that it did, actually I was amazed to see it existed at all. I thought the party had given up on us. After being turned out and called by the staff there, I think there’s going to be a really big change and push by the DPOC into Orange County over the next few years. Hopefully despite the loss, they won’t give up quite yet.

13. Thanks for commenting Thanh.

    The voice of someone from the Vietnamese community, far out weighs in validity the voices of non-Vietnamese pundits, all of us.

14. Damn! I should have posted here, instead on OCBlog two days ago.
    The reason for the Vietnamese big turnout this time:
    – It was not because of the Republican
    – It was not because of the Democrat
    – It was not because the Latino/Anglo… candidates
    – It was not because of Umberg or Bustamante.
    – and it was sure not because of single Vietnamese American on the ballot, because if there was only one Vietnamese Amercan candidate in the race, the Vietnamese turnout would not be that high.

    Ironically, It’s also because of Janet Nguyen, because the Vietnamese community can not afford to have her win in this election.