Nguyen Assembly campaign update
Janet Nguyen, the Garden Grove City Council Member who is running for the 68th Assembly District, has hired a top-notch campaign staff, according to the Flash Report and OC Blog. The staff includes: Gilliard, Blanning, Wysocki & Associates; Kevin Spillane as her senior advisor assisting with communications and strategy; Arnie Steinberg is her pollster; Wendy Warfield is in charge of fundraising.
I also finally found Nguyen’s website, via google.com. It is http://www.janetforassembly.com/. There is not much to the site currently. It is essentially her latest press release, announcing her endorsement by two Assembly members who do not represent Orange County: Sharon Runner and Audra Strickland.
Spillane has been around, and is well-respected. I searched for his name on google.com and found that he was involved in the last Riordan campaign for Governor, against Bill Simon, and he also helped out Rosario Marin when she last ran for the U.S. Senate.
Dave Gilliard is very well-connected in Sacramento, but he has been knocked in the past for spending money like it is going out of style. He is also an expert at chasing absentee votes, which helped John Campbell get to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Nguyen’s campaign team is experienced and expensive. That tells me that she is taking her campaign seriously, and she is expecting to raise a lot of money. Her primary opponent, Jim Righeimer, is a master of fundraising, but it looks like he is going to have his hands full dealing with Nguyen.
To make matters worse for Righeimer, someone has set up a very nasty website attacking him on several levels, at http://www.righeimerexposed.com/. Here are a few excerpts from this site: “Court records show that Jim Righeimer has been sued multiple times for breach of contract, fraud, failure to pay his bills, negligence and shoddy construction. The court even had to garnish his salary to collect judgments against him. It doesn’t stop there. He’s had multiple liens placed against him for failure to pay state and federal taxes and has had a warrant issued for his arrest in 1994.”
I don’t know if these charges will hold water, but they sure won’t help and if any of this gets picked up by the mainstream media, Righeimer will be in a real fix. Also, I finally found his website, (http://www.jimforassembly.com/) but it is just a logo. It must still be in development. Plus the URL does not turn up when you search for it on google.com. His web team may have not done a good job of making it available to search engines. In either case, he needs to either revamp his site and make it easier to find as soon as possible.
Many voters get turned off by negative campaigning. One Garden Grove activist even told me that he does not like either Nguyen or Righeimer, and he is waiting to see who else might decide to run.
I have no idea who the Democrats will be running, but I don’t think it will be Al Snook. His health has been an issue in the last few years. However, the Democrats might have an opportunity here to pick up a seat, if the GOP candidates destroy each other in the primary. One of them will prevail, but might emerge from the primary with mortal wounds that a slick Democrat will be able to take advantage of.
GBA did Jim’s last campaign. I wonder what recourse Jim has since they are using confidential information they might have gathered while in his employment.
Anonymous,
That puts Jim in an awful position. It sure sounds unethical to me. I wonder why Jim did not go with them again – that would have solved this problem in advance…
Word on the street is Jim owed GBA/ Monaco, quite a bit in back fee’s and commissions. My understanding is Jim didn’t authorize the spending. GBA has a rep. for this type of mis-understanding.
Went to Janet’s Website and saw that she playing the race card. Come on, does Janet really think that if Vietnam where situated geographically where Mexico is that poor Vietnamese wouldn’t be flocking over the border.
If that were the case, wonder about her stance on illegal Immigration? Seems like everybody either says after arriving, “okay stop now” or “I did it legally”
No, Janet. You didn’t do it legally. Instead it was the failed policies of your country that led you here. (Sounds similar to Mexico, right) The vietnamese people allowed themselves to be ruled and subjegated to other nations and finally when they gained independence they divided ideoligically. And so on and so forth… The fact is that my father(came here illegally), uncle and Grandfather fought in the last two wars and they didn’t receive the same benefits that Vietnames refugees get when they come to this country. That’s a shame.
So you can play the race card and lets hope in your case one of these groups takes it to another level. How about this state law?
Because of the circumstance of 911, all local, state and congressional elected leaders must be born in the United States.
I’ll vote for it? Will you?
Im sure the minute miltia would?
Janet’s consultant’s playbook includes playing the race card both ways. Hispanic,Vienamese, you name it Gillaird has done it…and gotten away with it. Who can forget the hit peice he did on Van Tran in 2004 for raising money In San Jose. It said something like ” I go to San Jose and raise lot money” with Van’s picture on it.What I think it points to is that Janet will check her integrity at the door in order to win.