Is it Van's congressional race or Janet's?

Highlander,

There was no "Disaster" for Van Tran yesterday. Rather, none of the candidates he chose to endorse, won. End of story.

Not endorsing someone (or endorsing one person over another) does not mean one "opposes" them; it simply means there was a preference between the two. I'm sure Van will have no problem working with any of those you mentioned. In your haste to try and egg on a fight where there is none, you obviously missed the Totalbuzz posting of Van's phone call to Janet congratulating her.

As to your "0 for 6" comment, as you try to put down Van for whatever your reason, let me gently remind you it is because of him that we even have a competitive presence in the 1st Sup. Dist. and were able to win it back from the Democrats. No other Elected Official in Orange County has worked harder at building up our base than Van Tran - that's an undeniable fact. He has helped a lot of good Republicans get elected.

...And why is the fact that one of Janet's staffers winning a seat on Central Committee "adding insult to injury?" She happens to be in my Assembly District and I look forward to working with her but I didn't support Janet Nguyen for re-election either.

Lastly, you dismiss the fact that we have a capable, candidate in Rosie Avila who can defeat Lorreta Sanchez this November if the OCGOP rises to the challenge and supports her.

Now kindly get off the good Assemblyman's back and help us take back Central County this November. Thank you.

Semper Fi,

Tim

Tim,

Might be too much to ask Janet's supporters to be gracious winners.

That's a valiant defense of Tran, Tim, but the unfortunate fact is when you associate yourself with a bunch of losers, it does one no good.

Highlander:

Interesting litany, but exactly how does that weaken Van Tran?

Janet is going to be the GOP hope in this swing Congressional seat in 2010. She is a proven fighter that knows how to win the close ones.

Jubal-
I don't think the bad endorsements will weaken Van Tran rather the outcome of the races are more telling of his influence. His supporters have been banging away on your blog for the last six months about how his endorsement was going to be disastrous to Mimi and Bob Huff. Van will tell anyone that will listen that Janet is not well liked in the community. Both are obviously wrong.

Van burned bridges right and left, He ignored repeated pleas from the donors and from his fellow OC legislators. When any one of them endorsed our incumbent Republican Supervisor for re-election, Van in an immature rage turned around and endorsed against them. His stock is at an all-time low and only he can rebuild it.

Regarding Tim Whitacare-----------------------

Besides Van losing yesterday, Timbo did too. Timbo was paid $4,000 by Dina's campaign. Timbo knows where his bread is buttered. What choice advice did you give Dina to give her such great results?
Another overpaid strategist who can't seem to win. Good luck with Rosie's race. See page 38 of Dina's finance report. Tim you are such a Trannie hack.

http://www.ocvote.com/election/disclosure/dnguyen/20080318March%2018,%202008-May%2017,%202008.pdf

In politics there are two types of people:

1. Those who put their finger up in the air and go with the direction that the wind is blowing.

2. Those that are their for their friends despite knowing that it might not be the most beneficial thing to do.

Van Tran is the latter and that's why he has a following, not because he's always endorsing the obvious front runner or the establishment's choice, but he's always there for his loyal friend.

I hope your boss can throw some money at your political hobby later this year, Highlander.

Tim, let's not pretend Van's endorsements were a benign "preference" for Harry Sidhu and Dennis Mountjoy. Everybody knows Van turned on his assembly colleagues, Huff and Walters, because they had the audacity to support Janet. If that wasn't his intention, it was certainly seen that way by the people involved. I'll grant you his support of Blais and Dick was probably a simple case of O.C. hanging together. For the record, I'll be there helping Rosie, and if she wins, it will end Van's 2010 run against Loretta before it begins.
Jubal, let's try a hypothetical: Rohrabacher decides to hang em up in 2010. Scott Baugh and Van Tran face off against each other in the GOP primary. Who do you think Senators Walters and Huff, along with Assemblymen Miller and Hagman (not to mention Huff and Walters good friend Duvall), will end up endorsing? Van is the embodiment of the principle that memories can be long in politics, and Van just gave a reason to a big chunk of the O.C. GOP establishment not to side with him in a future primary. Having said that, I'm certainly with you guys in hoping that we put a quick end to the infighting and work together to defeat the liberals.

Highlander is right.

Van Tran's scorched earth policy has soured his relationship with soon-to-be State Senators Mimi Walters and Bob Huff. He has alienated many other colleagues in the legislature by armtwisting them over his Quixotic attempt to unseat Supervisor Janet Nguyen.

The bottom line is that Van Tran's hand-picked candidate lost by a 2-to-1 margin.

Tran put his prestige and his credibility on the line, and the result is a rebuke from the voters of central Orange County.

This was no behind the scenes effort - Tran spoke against Supervisor Nguyen before the Republican Party, directly mailed to the voters of the First District on his own letterhead, and paid for ads on Vietnamese radio attacking Supervisor Janet Nguyen.

If Tran had spent more time helping elect his chief-of-staff, and less time recruiting and funding a flawed candidate attempting to unseat a Republican incumbent, he would have made gains this election cycle.

Instead, Tran focused his efforts against Supervisor Janet Nguyen and those who dared to support her despite his objections.

Tran will have a lot of work to do to mend fences and restore his credibility with his legislative colleagues, Republican activists, central Orange County voters and namely Supervisor Janet Nguyen.

If he and his supporters ignore these loses and continue to agitate and attack, then clearly there is no lesson learned from this and Tran is doomed to future failure.

why do you praise the big fat lady so much? i know her since she was a kid working as an assemblyman aide. nothing special. just big, fat, and ugly.

now, move over to 2010. why bother? in 2008 mccain will become the next president. van tran will work in his cabinet and thus does not need to worry 2010 election. get it?

if you don't want van tran to work in the d.c., then don't support mccain. vote for obama. can you do that? no, right?

what a bunch of idiots.

Obviously Highlander is not paying enough attention to politics in Orange County otherwise he would know that Van Tran and Mimi Walters never did have a good relationship to begin with so it doesn't really matter.

Mimi has been targeting the 33 Senate District for a long time so she listened to Ackerman and endorsed Lynn Daucher against Van Tran who is her '04 classmate.

Mimi has never been there for Tran in the first place so why the hell would he want to support her? Even if Tran stays out of the Sidhu vs. Walters fight, Mimi still won't lift a finger for him in his bid against Sanchez.

And if Tran were to run against Scott Baugh for Dana's seat, Mimi would endorse Scott anyway, regardless if Tran get involve in her fight or not.

Stop trying to spin for your people Highlander cuzz I heard you ended your relationships with a few people as well by going all hardcore for Janet.

the big fat lady will lose greatly if the election is a primary one. look at the meager number she has and compare it to the number of registered voters in the county. so, in 2012 she will have a hard time. also the democrats, especially viet democrats are growing in numbers. in 2012 who knows if thien tam, lou's aide or phu nguyen, son of tycoon owner of hoa phat, or phu do nguyen, the rising tycoon in real estate will enter the race. behind thien tam or phu there are vsa groups with a large base of young and eager voters and volunteers.

the big fat lady will certainly face a hard-time retaining her seat. but she really needs the seat. it's not just the seat. it's her income. it's her family income. without it, what can she do with no real work experience?

on the other hand, van tran will now free to do whatever he wants to do because he knows that janet will not dare to risk her seat or even attemp to leave her seat for another seat, such as sanchez's possible open seat in 2010.

also, in the vietnamese the big fat lady cannot get along with many. young voters, like the vsa members who are about her age disapprove of her. many vsa leaders i talk to do not respect the big fat lady for her skills, education, or leadership. she does not get along with the older generations either. all of these groups support her opponents. the only group that might support her is the group protesting nguoi viet newspaper. but ngo ky, one of the leaders of that group hates tony lam, who is the big fat lady's advisor, to death. without true support, it's hard for her to recruit vietnamese candidates to go against van tran's candidates.

what you can foresee that there will be 2 main forces in the vietnamese community: the current van tran's group and the emerging young democrats group (thien tam, phu, do phu, hoa tran, etc.). in nowhere will you find the big fat lady's group.

as such, van tran will free to do many more things, preparing him to enter a much bigger challenge in 2010. or not. he might be serving in mccain's cabinet in 2009 already, if mccain wins. if that's the case, he can even more freely recruit and produce more young and eager vietnamese politicians.

on the same token, the local vietnamese democrats might prevail if obama wins. attorney phu do nguyen and failed candidate hoa van tran are supporters of obama. who knows if one of them will serve in mccain's cabinet. they'll have a reason to take back central oc from the reps.

if the big fat lady wants to build her own team, without vietnamese support, she then must turn to hispanics or caucasians or muslims to recruit, nurture and cultivate them. but what is it for? they can come back and bite her because they have their (ethnic, race) supporters, too.

so, to sum up, the big fat lady is very lucky to secure a $130,000 job and she will hold it tight, very tight. she will not want to risk the big check for anything else.

If "Big Fat Idiot" and Tim Whitacre are indicative of Van Tran and his supporters, then Van Tran is truly doomed.

Whitacre's divisiveness guaranteed that Bill Hunt didn't get one single vote from the five Orange County Supervisors.

Now he's the paid political spokesman for Van Tran through the Dina Nguyen payroll.

Tim Whitacre won't even acknowledge that a Republican already won in central Orange County when Janet Nguyen defeated Democrat favorite Tom Umberg last year.

Yes, and that Republican only had a shot in hell to win the district over Umberg BECAUSE of Van Tran, not despite him.

Well apparently her win this time did NOT depend on Van Tran so I wonder how you explain this win?

I don't like Janet (primarily her politics). And while I agree that Janet does not have a pleasing demeanor or appearance, Big Fat Idiot is living up to his name by referring to her as the big fat lady. You aren't doing those of us who would have liked nothing more than to see Janet defeated Tuesday a favor. Grow up.

Dear Captain - are you a Democrat? Hanging out with us repub's here on the red blog coult taint your reputation as a Dem! Watch out for your rep!

Van Tran will do what's right, despite preferences from those who wanted him to do the politically expedient thing.

Keep in mind those who he endorsed, regardless of the outcome, have personal political relaitonship and supporgted him in the past. Can't say the same for the other side.

It's always nice to be personally right and be a winner at the same time. But it takes personal courage to do what is right, even when the outcome did not turn out one's way.

Still, Van Tran had won his fair shares of battles. This is just one election cycle.

Hoa van tran in the Obama cabinet? Someone must be dreaming..... No matter who wins the presidency, Hoa Van Tran is a small time attorney who isn't qualified to be Supervisor, let alone White House Staff. Unless he held a secret fundraiser at a Buddhist Temple???