Fast and Furious in Orange County
February 16, 2007
No matter the outcome of the hotly contested election and recount between Trung Nguyen and Janet Nguyen, there will be a Vietnamese American winner on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. In mere months, a community geared up to place the first Vietnamese American and Asian Pacific American on the five-member board that is a capitol of Vietnamese America. Combined, the two Nguyens accounted for nearly a majority of the vote.
The election proved that the district and its Asian Pacific American voters had choices between two qualified, seasoned and electable Vietnamese Americans — Janet Nguyen is a Garden Grove councilmember, while Trung Nguyen serves as a Garden Grove school board member.
It’s no longer the case where APAs are forced into voting booths while holding their noses and choosing the only Asian American candidate available in the race.
In this election, republican Janet Nguyen ran independently of the “political machines” backing her opponents — whether they were supported by the local Democratic Party, labor or the Vietnamese American political establishment.
Her rival, republican Trung Nguyen, was supported by the Vietnamese American political establishment — including Assemblyman Van Tran — the former Garden Grove councilmember.
Trung Nguyen, and Janet Nguyen in the past, had ties to the so-called “Tran machine” that has led efforts in past years with the county Republican Party to increase the political clout of Vietnamese Americans through voter registration and higher turnouts. It was the latter — higher turnout of Vietnamese Americans in Little Saigon that won the day for one Nguyen and stunned the pundits.
Tran and his team have built a political infrastructure that’s geared to the long haul. With term limits eventually closing opportunities for Tran in the state Assembly by 2010, the Vietnamese American political leadership is grooming candidates on the city council and school board levels for the day when Tran and others seek higher office. Instead of having a leadership vacuum, a battle-tested talent pool of candidates like Trung and Janet Nguyen have proven their mettle to move quickly to run, raise money, register and turn out voters and win as one Nguyen did on Feb. 6.
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