Andrew Do appears to be the first candidate running for Orange County’s First Supervisorial District to get a campaign mailer out. The mailer is nothing special but it serves to establish that Do is backed by a bunch of mostly white Republican elected officials – and his former boss, Janet Nguyen. Notably he does not appear to be backed by any Latinos.
I checked Do’s campaign website and there also he does not list any Latino supporters. And his campaign Facebook page only has six supporters – which is probably why he needed to get the campaign mailer out right away. Do has been out of office for awhile, having resigned from the Garden Grove City Council a few years ago. I am not sure the voters know who he is.
Do also has signs all over Little Saigon – but someone has been destroying both his signs and those of his Republican opponent, Garden Grove Councilman Chris Phan. The Phannies have accused the campaign of Democratic candidate Lou Correa, but I spoke to the guys who have been putting up Correa’s signs and they both said that they have not gone after anyone else’s signs.
I suspect the folks destroying the signs might be Vietnamese residents who dislike both Do and Phan – or they might be union goons who are supporting Correa. Or perhaps the Do and Phan signs are just flimsy and the strong winds are wrecking them?
Do does seem to be going after the white votes, which is what his old boss, Janet Nguyen, has done so many times before. It is a smart move as there are no white candidates in the race for the First District seat that Nguyen is abandoning now that she has been elected to the 34th State Senate District.
I am also hearing however that Do is up to his old tricks in the Vietnamese community. He has allegedly bought up all the advertising available in the local Viet media – and there are questions as to whether or not he is actually reporting all of these expenditures (and whether or not he is actually paying for them).
Do was the bag man for Nguyen back in the day – and he would meet with other candidates and offer to promote them in the Viet community, for the tidy sum of $100K.
There have been many allegations of fishy campaign contributions to Nguyen and in fact the FPPC is still looking into these charges. You can bet that Do will be up to the same shenanigans in his own race for the First District.
But can Do prevail even though there is a three-way Viet vote split? He has to take out both Phan and an independent candidate, Chuyen Van Nguyen. The latter is a former staffer of retired Democratic State Senator Joe Dunn. I suspect that Van Nguyen is a spoiler as he has no campaign website, no campaign Facebook page and he did not buy a candidate’s statement. You have to wonder if Correa’s camp had something to do with this guy getting on the ballot.
The GOP tried to pull the same monkey business by putting notorious anti-Mexican Lupe Morfin Moreno on the ballot. It is an obvious attempt to leach a few Latino votes away from Correa.
Will Latinos vote? They didn’t in the November General Election, when both Jose Solorio and Sharon Quirk-Silva lost legislative seats to Asian Republican candidates.
But Moreno’s presence on the ballot is a sure sign that the Jannies are taking Correa seriously, as they should.
I am told that Janet herself has been parading Do around Santa Ana – specifically targeting holiday events that Correa has hosted. That is rather underhanded but about what I have come to expect from both Janet and her henchman Do.
The mailer in question by the way was sent to my wife, who is a Republican. I am a registered Libertarian and it will be interesting to see if any of the campaigns bother to send mailers to members of third parties, and Decline to State voters. In what is sure to be a low turnout election it could be a real mistake to ignore these voters.
Our mailing is being sent to all high propensity voters regardless of party preference. Hope you get it soon. Happy New Year!