Van Tran for Congress

Sanchez Challenged On Vietnam Credentials

Politico.com
By: Kasie Hunt
July 28, 2010

“…There’s a big debate in the community whether she’s effective or not — whether she’s doing it for lip service or for votes, because the big question is, after 14 years in the House, what substantial and tangible results can she show in terms of advancing Vietnamese democracy and human rights,” Tran told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday. “Show us your accomplishments — what bills, what legislation, what political prisoners?”

Tran is a popular, term-limited state assemblyman whose political power rests squarely with the rapidly growing Vietnamese American community centered in Little Saigon, a neighborhood of Vietnamese shops, grocery stores and restaurants spanning the Orange County cities of Westminster and Garden Grove.

His constituency has more than doubled in the years since Sanchez was first elected to the House in 1996: Then, Vietnamese Americans accounted for less than 10 percent of the electorate. Now, they comprise almost 25 percent of the district’s voters.

National Republicans were watching — Vietnamese Americans in the district tend to vote GOP — and they pushed Tran hard to get into the race. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee’s recruitment efforts this cycle, can’t stop talking about Tran’s potential.

Sanchez has taken careful notice. Aside from her work in Congress, she appears each year at Little Saigon’s Tet festival wearing traditional Vietnamese garb, and she has traveled to Vietnam…

…But visiting the country is actually controversial within the Vietnamese community.

…Tran is closely followed by the ethnic press: There are four Vietnamese TV stations, several Vietnamese-language newspapers and numerous closely followed Vietnamese radio stations. He regularly appears on Vietnamese radio, a cheap and effective way to reach voters. “You can buy radio really cheap on some of these stations — if you’re on the air for half an hour for $180,” said Adam Probolsky, an Orange County pollster and consultant.

And although Sanchez does coordinated outreach to the Vietnamese press, Tran has the lingustic advantage: Sanchez does not speak Vietnamese. “So 7 p.m. at night, you’re talking politics with Van, and he’s on the air for half an hour while people are driving home,” said Probolsky, who ran a campaign in June for a local judge. “We bought Vietnamese press — print and radio, as cheap as can be — but it had a huge impact on the outcome,” he said.

For the full article visit: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40366.html