I have been accused by a number of identified and anonymous bloggers of being a “shill†for First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen. Dictionary.com defines shill as a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.
To make things as perfectly clear as possible, I believe there are no acceptable choices for Supervisor in the Orange County First District contest. Here is my ranking of the candidates.
Janet Nguyen – BAD
Dina Nguyen – WORSE
Hoa Van Tran – WORST
If some think that this ranking is an endorsement of Janet Nguyen, then English may be your second language.
I placed a comment over on Red County/OCBlog on Friday afternoon in response to a post made by “Tomahawk†regarding the expenditure of funds by the OCGOP in support of Janet Nguyen, the party’s endorsed candidate in the First District. Because I identified by name who Tomahawk is and what his relationship is to Van Tran and the Dina Nguyen campaign, the comment was deleted.
I revised the comment later Friday evening to this:
Chris Prevatt said:
Tomahawk,
Your post appears to be a bit biased against Janet Nguyen.
Do you happen to be one of Dina Nguyen’s major supporters?
If so, don’t you think you should disclose that fact?
There were a number of responses made. Funny, Tomahawk has yet to answer the question.
On the matter of the First District Supes race, I have no loyalty to any of the candidates. I have no friendships that guide my position on this contest. I make no profit from my position on this contest. I have no personal self interest, other than my personal opinion that the Democrat in this race, Hoa Van Tran, is an idiot and unworthy of support; that Dina Nguyen is nothing more than a puppet for the Emperor of Little Saigon Assemblyman Van Thai Tran in his never-ending war against Janet Nguyen, just like Trung Nguyen; and that Janet Nguyen has voted against the best interests of the First district on numerous occasions as well as wasted public funds to remodel her office and using Health Care Agency funds to pay for her personal staff while cutting staff for public healthcare services.
Just like Trung Nguyen last year, the only way that Hoa Van Tran and Dina Nguyen are going to get to the fifth floor of the Hall of Administration will be via PhotoShop.
So if anonymous bloggers want to call me a shill; have at it. Posting anonymously to publicize or praise someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty makes you the shills, not me.
English IS my second language. Actually, third. Heh heh heh.
Please stop calling Van Thai Tran Emperor of Little Saigon; call him Boss Tran ala Boss Tweed. Thank you.
Good try Chris. We all know where you stand on this.
You support Janet Nguyen but wanted people to keep it on the “downlow”. Of course that was silly of you because nothing in politics stays “downlow”. Now that you’ve been exposed you try to cover up for your antics.
The funniest thing is that you make no case about thrashing your party’s endorsed candidate. I’ll be laughing when Janet challenges Solorio for the 69th and all the fingers start being pointed at you.
Well, actually, from what I’ve seen from you Democrats, they’ll take no action. It seems like treason’s not a big deal in your party.
Good luck with the 1st, the 69th, the 47th, and the 34th in the future with that attitude buddy.
What hell, Chris. Is it jihad time against every OC blogger who has a bias? If that’s the case, you won’t have time to blog about anything else.
Do we all have to preface every post with a “disclosure of bias,” lest you brand us as “shills”?
Please point out where in Tomahawk’s post there is any reference to you — unless it is written in invisible pixels. Nowhere in that post or in the comments are you called a shill. Nowhere. So exactly how is this even remotely about you?
Here’s my take on the worst of all evils choice.
You vote for the candidate that poses the least chance of challenging another candidate that you agree with.
In your case since you are a democrat, and there are two republican candidates, the centrist candidate is the worst of all evils.
Using Paul’s philosophy, your “worst of all evils” support of Janet more than the others will put Lorretta or Lou in danger of maintaining their seat.
If Dina wins I seriously doubt she will attempt to challenge Correa of Sanchez. She is clearly no match for them.
Hoa will not challenge them.
Janet is the only one who will have a chance down the road at beating Lou or loretta and your worst of all evils approach put their seat in harms way.
Nail on the head! Trung Diep should call the whambulance at 1 800 waa waa waaa. He tried to stack the OCGOP Central Committee endorsement vote using Trannie Stooge Paul Lucas as his weapoin and it backfired. So now all he can is cry as the GOP goes all Janet all the time
d’Anconia
I think I’ve laid out the case against a vote for Hoa Van Tran pretty well over the past several weeks. He is an embarrassment to Democratic Party, in the same way that Tan Nguyen was an embarrassment to the Republican Party two years ago. Please produce the evidence that I am on the “down-low” in support of Janet or stuff your allegation somewhere else. And please, explain to me how I am trying to cover something up. I’m not the one posting anonymously.
Jubal,
Like the choice of the word Jiahd. I stand behind my words with my name. I do not hide behind a false identity so that I can claim objectivity. The premise that Tomahawk made was just more petty crying over Van Tran not getting his way under the guise of hoping that the party does a mailing of support for a GOP executive committee member running for office. I feel he should have at least disclosed his bias. Still waiting for him to answer the question, although I do not expect him to.
Joey,
The Republican from central OC who is looking for a place to run is “Boss Tweed” Assemblyman Van Tran (termed out in 2010). He is the one likely challenger to either Lou or Loretta. More likely Lou. Janet, is no threat to Lou or Loretta.
Chris,
1) If you think Janet will be satisfied with her Supervisorial seat and won’t challenge your beloved Democrats, you are either delusional or playing stupid (I think a combination of both).
2) Re-read your response to Matt’s comment:
“The premise that Tomahawk made was just more petty crying over Van Tran not getting his way under the guise of hoping that the party does a mailing of support for a GOP executive committee member running for office. I feel he should have at least disclosed his bias.”
And since Tomahawk was taking a side swipe at Janet you felt compelled to defend her. Because you support her.
Why else?
Thanks, come again.
I feel he should have at least disclosed his bias.
Terrific. Should I now make a habit of telling you how to run your blog?
Stand by your comments all you want. Your post is a giant straw man built around imaginary “shill” accusations against you on a Red County post. If there’s a real issue of even remote importance buried in this post, I’ll have to rent an electron microscope to find it.
In the meantime, I assume all future posts here will be the first examples of the Chris Prevatt Blog Police, and begin with a large-type warning from the Surgeon General disclosing any and all biases that may be contained in the post.
Sheesh. What a joke.
The word “shill” is used around these parts (the OC blogosphere) so frequently and easily that it has become meaningless. It’s started to mean “a supporter of somebody I don’t like.”
Chris listed the dictionary definition up above, but it’s worthwhile to remember the original meaning (at least I think this is it, too lazy to look it up so this is off the top of my head, but it’s picturesque.)
At a carnival, or out in a medieval crowd where a snake-oil salesman is selling his elixirs, or out on the corner at a three-card monte game, or at the revival tent of a traveling preacher who’s got the healing powers … it’s the person who pretends to be an innocent bystander but is secretly in the employ of the con man, and amazingly has an easy victory at the card or carnival game, or can suddenly WALK after being crippled so many years…. so that other folks put their money down.
Looked at that way it doesn’t fit any of us. Definitely not Art re. Janet or Sean re. Hoa or moi re. Debbie or Chris re. anybody. Even Tomahawk, I think we all know he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Trannie even if not everybody can remember his real name.
Vern-
Definitions aside, I think it speaks volumes when you’re comparing Art Pedroza (former Republican, now independent) being a shill for Janet (Republican), Tomahawk (Republican) being a shill for Dina (Republican), and Chris Prevatt (Democrat) being a shill for Janet (Republican).
I’m sure you catch my drift.
d’A: if you’ve ever walked precincts you know that most voters care very little about a candidate’s party in a non-partisan race. In fact, a good percentage of voters aren’t terribly interested in party identification even in a partisan race.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with being highly partisan. Some of my best friends, etc. But extreme partisanship doesn’t reflect the attitude of the majority of voters.
d’A = only if that’s true about Chris, and I haven’t seen any evidence.
d’Ancona,
I’m to understand that you are calling our a liberal blogger for not supporting a party endorsed candidate? But somehow your perfectly fine with your party’s Darth Vader Schroeder (otherwise known as the suck-up to the indicted little sheriff) and Boss Tran (your all communists to me!) running hatchet jobs against the established Republican Party endorsed candidate in the same race?
You’ve got some xplain’n to do!