Janet Nguyen was sworn in yesterday as the first Vietnamese-American elected Supervisor in Orange County and the youngest as well. This election has been a roller coaster ride for both Janet and Trung Nguyen. Both candidates have held the lead at different points in time. ÂÂ
Both candidates have also been accused of promoting anti-Latino sentiments, Trung Nguyen pretending to be a border guard, and Janet Nguyen calling on Vietnamese voters to vote for her with this comment “She also has votes from other ethnic communities, women, seniors, Republicans who do not like Mexicansâ€Â.
Now is the time for healing and repair. Janet Nguyen needs to reach out to the Latino community and demonstrate that she is not the racist that her comment to the Vietnamese community portrays.
It is also time for Trung Nguyen to accept defeat at the hands of a woman. Mr. Nguyen, the only way to save face now, if that is even possible, is to accept your defeat gracefully and fade off into the shadows of history.
In their Editorial today, the Orange County Register said it best…
Mr. Nguyen ran a good race, but he should put an end to any more legal action. The county should wish Ms. Nguyen the best as she becomes the first Vietnamese-American county supervisor.
It’s not just Trung; the whole Van Tran/Mike Schroeder machine needs to let this one go.
You’re absolutely right, Chris. This thing needs to come to an end. Trung Nguyen, Mike Schroeder, and Van Tran need to let it go. Central OC is already suffering from not having anyone to serve us at the county level for so long, so why should we delay any longer?
Now I wasn’t all that happy last month when Umberg lost, but I moved on. It’s time for Schroeder and Tran to do the same.
Janet won. Janet’s in. It’s time to move on.
move on? This is what people told Al Gore. Trung has a right to take as long as he wants and take this as far as he wants.
Besides, it serves a useful public policy purpose to have Republicans spending money and energy fighting each other. When two of your enemies are fighting, why break up the fight?
The new ruling of the Legislative Counsel contradicts the judge’s ruling, so this thing might not be over yet.
In Gore vs. Bush, Gore moved on once the court ruled. Also, I believe it was Bush who appealed to the Supreme Court. I see that as Bush not moving on rather than Gore.
As far as the determination of Legislative Counsel goes, ot has no legal weight. I also do not believe there would be any change if the VVPAT’s were to be reviewed. The 1 percent review showed no errors in the electronic tallies.
The only reason Darth Schroeder raised the issue was in effort to invalidate the reount. His objection had nothing to do with an accurate counting of the votes. Team Trung did not ask for the VVPAT’s to be audited. They just wanted the original tally to stand unchanged.
Team Trung needs to move on, challenge Janet in 2008 if they want, but give the recount a rest.
Did Prevatt actually write “The Orange County Register said it best”?
Thought I felt the earth wobble a bit this morning. I need to check outside to see if the sky is a brilliant shade of orange.
😉
First of all, I find it pretty funny that my anti-spam word was paper ballot, but, moving on…
Chris, you are a bit off on the Bush v Gore case. Bush appealed the Florida Sup. Ct.’s decision to CONTINUE the recount (in the second case). Thus, he was trying to shut down the process. So, your analogy is a bit off. Thus, Janet=Bush and Trung=Gore…like it or not. Listen, I’m no Trung Nguyen fan, but allowing a precedent like this, and not even fighting, will come back and bite us in the end. Whether it’s another presidential election, or a Congressional seat, or just another Supervisorial seat where there actually is a good candidate. You fight for election integrity because democracy is just that important to put Janet’s powerful advocacy on hold for a little while longer.
As I’ve said in response to Andrew at Calitics, finality is just not a good enough reason to override election integrity. The paper ballots should have been counted. Heck, ex-SoS McPherson even promised us the paper ballots would be counted in Nov06:
Post Election Day Procedures
Here’s that thing from McPherson which disappeared somehow:
Post Election Day Procedures
* The mandatory paper audit trail will be used for a full recount if necessary.
Oops forgot the link: http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2006/06_167.pdf
Chris – your bias against trung is getting old. Have you ever even met him? He is a very nice man with a great sense of humor. He did what anyone else would have done that had their election separated by 7 votes. So far you are the one I see keeping the bad feelings going by posting crap like this. I mean come on, talk about janet, be positive, if you are asking everyone else to be as well.
Brian-
I agree with your artfully concise statement that “Finality is just not a good enough reason to override election integrity.” Well said.
But I’m not certain that the statement from McPherson you cited really buttresses your argument. “The mandatory paper audit trail will be used for a full recount IF NECESSARY” [emphasis mine]. WHO is to determine necessity here? The recount requestor or the election officer? In this case the Registrar, rightly so in my opnion, left the decision up to the requestor. So Janet (who at that point was paying for the recount) determined if use of the paper audit trail was necessary.
I think you’re interpreting the quoted portion to mean “If a full recount is deemed necessary, the mandatory paper audit trail shall be used.” Which is one interpretation. But I think McPherson would have used that terminology if that’s what he meant. Like many laws, it was left purposefully vague, open to judicial interpretation.
Bottom line – language is a very imprecise way to communicate.
Well, I interpret “if necessary” to mean “if there’s a full recount”. But I could be wrong. I would also point out that in the PDF, “full” is bolded. To me that indicates, when there is a full recount, the paper trails will be used. I mean, this was supposed to be a full recount, right.
However, one thing that I can assure you, our current SoS, Debra Bowen, would surely agree with the idea that the paper trail should have been used rather than just using the electronic tally.
In the end, I just believe democracy is worth fighting for, no matter what result that leaves you with.
Flowerzz,
I do not view pointing out Team Trung’s obvious hypocrisy regardng the recount as being anti-Trung.
When Janet asked for a recout, like you said that is what anyone would do, Team Trung called her a sore loser. Once he was behind, Team Trung chalenged the result of the recount and demanded that the results be thrown out because the VVPAT was not used in the recount. Team Trung did not ask that the VVPATs be counted.
I agree that it was within Trung Nguyen’s rights to challenge the ballots that he did. Judge Brenner ruled in his favor on some and not for others. The result is that Janet Nguyen won by three votes. To further argue to have the recount thrown out is simply the act desperation from a sore loser. I could understand if Team Trung were to argue that the Registrar should review all the VVPAT’s for this election, but that is not what occurred.
Brian,
If we believe that VVPAT’s should be used in all recounts we need to ask our legislators to make the matter clear in the law.
Chris – Team trung did argue in court about the VPAT. They lost, we all need to move on. I have not heard anything from HIS mouth that says he is going to fight anylonger.
There have been lots of things said on both sides. Lots of misrepresentation in the press and mail on both sides, not just the photoshop crap or pics with Buddhist monks.
We all know what happened and we have been following it…my point was that you are beating a dead horse. You talk about moving forward and are talking about the past. How can things move forward and people heal and let go, with people constantly rehashing the past? I just don’t feel your post was genuine, when it is obvious that your goal is not to move forward but to continually bash on someone. Which is fine, just don’t misrepresent yourself is all I am asking.
Flowerzzz,
I believe, and hope you would agree, that a press statement from the Trung Nguyen campaign is a statement from his mouth.
This from Mike Schroeder on behalf of Trung Nguyen in their most recent release regarding the opinion from Legislative Counsel…
“This Legislative Counsel’s opinion shows that Janet’s Nguyen’s cafeteria school of recounting was not legal. We will decide in the next few days whether to seek an appeal to correct this error of certifying the wrong candidate for the Board of Supervisors,†stated Schroeder.
This is hardly old news or rehashing the past. Team Trung’s release was issued yesterday. Janet Nguyen was sworn in yeterday as well. I posted my comments this morning. I hardly think it is me who is beating a dead horse. If anyone is doing that it is Team Trung. I will give the idea of thinking of Trung Nguyen as a “Dead Horse” further consideration.
I think I was actually harder on Janet in my post than I was on Trung. But you are entitled to your opinion.
Thanks for commenting, I do enjoy the dialogue.
Chris—You’re falling into the same line of reasoning of the GOP in 2000—calling Gore “Soreloserman.” After the Supreme Court remanded the case, Gore lost at the trial or circuit court level and appealed to the District Court, which then referred the case to the Florida Supreme Court. Bush appealed from that one. Like Gore, Trung lost at the trial court. You say he is a sore loser for not accepting Judge Brenners decision, based on conflicting statutes and some inconsistency in the judges rulings. Soreloserman Trung. Soreloserman Gore.
When you lose an election in the OC by 3 votes or Florida by 1,800 votes, nobody should try to hassle you when you are exhausting all your legal remedies.
Besides, as the post above argues, why break up a GOP cat fight? Let them bleed.
Northcountystorm,
For me the issue is that Team Trung called Janet a sore loser for asking for the recount, which was her right. Given that fact, he cannot then somehow claim moral high ground and accuse her of gaming the system and stealing the election while trying to do the same thing by asking that the recount be voided.
If Team Trung were to ask that the VVPAT’s be reviewed, I would agree. But that is not what he is trying to do. And while it may be Trung Nguyen’s right to appeal the results of the recount and Judge Brenner’s decision, I find it appropriate to toss the sore loser moniker back at Team Trung.
I do agree however, it is fun to watch these Republican kittens fight it out.
Chris -who cares about calling someone a sore loser. Besides it’s not your fight. In the whole scheme of things there are much worse things that were, can be or coulda been said. Calling someone a sore loser is part of the process, just as when Trung took it to court everyone was calling him a sore loser. WHo cares? I don’t hear the candidates complaining about it.
Flowerzz — don’t you remember the Madame Cleo press release Trung put out belittling Janet for claiming voter fraud?
There was an election. It was close. There was an honeslty conducted recount. There is a result. Trung lost. And so did the team behind him. To continue to move forward here means Trung et al are putting their own best interest ahead of the people of the First District.
And on the 2000 election between Bush and Gore, the bigger issue was the party that positions itself as the strongest advocate of states rights trumping state law to appeal to the Federal Bench for a favorable decision. Had the full extent of Florida law been upheld, Gore would have likely won but let’s not beat a dead horse, shall we?
Regardless of which candidate was seated due to the special election, holding on to that seat will be tough during the next election cycle.
I just hope Janet Nguyen appoints me to the county film commission
Dan of course I remember – how could anyone forget, you or Chris bring Ms Cleo or photoshop up every other sentence….which is exactly my point.
Look all I am saying is that everything that has happened and all that has been said thus far was all to be expected given the vote count. The ms. Cleo was just a funny twist on it, brought about by a different perspective/consultant. No one is offended but you guys……and she was/is not even your candidate! (remember Umberg????)
And Dan, Bush vs. Gore was 7 years ago – get over it already….which is my point as well. Do you guys ever move on or do you just hold on and rehash it for ever?