“Buy a Word” for Ken Arnold, help defeat Van Tran!

(Assembly candidate Ken Arnold and wife Thanh-Thanh Ho at July 4 parade)

So Van Tran, the notoriously corrupt and power-hungry assemblyman for the 68th AD (Garden Grove, Westminster, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa) has decided, true to form, to opt out of campaign spending limits, which means he won’t be allowed to place a “candidate statement” in the state-published voter information booklet.  This presents a unique opportunity to his Democratic challenger, the popular progressive patriot Ken Arnold, who will now get to be the only candidate with a statement in the booklet, BUT it will cost him twice as much as it would have otherwise — over $10,500, for a 250-word statement, due by the first week of August.

That’s where you and I come in — Ken has launched a “Buy A Word” campaign, and for $42 you can be the proud owner of one of the 250 words in his statement — democracy in action!  If you can afford more you can buy an entire sentence for $420, or just a letter for $15.  Personally I bought a word just now, and although the statement’s not written yet, I have called dibs on “values.”  (If that word doesn’t end up in the statement I’ll take the first “of.”)  Contribute here: www.actblue.com/page/buy_a_word and remember:  Each time Ken sells a word, another Trannie loses its wings!  (Click “read more” for a little more info on Ken, Van Tran, and Ken’s first fundraiser in Costa Mesa August 8…)


The incumbent, Van Thai Tran, is often referred to as “Boss Tran” for his patient, systematic, and sometimes ruthless, building of a Little-Saigon-centered political machine, whose members are known as “Trannies.”  Although his grip on power has begun to slip of late, between the success of non-Trannie Republican Supervisor Janet Nguyen and the steady exodus of young Vietnamese-American voters to the Democratic Party and Decline-to-state status, he is still a malign figure in state and local politics (with even higher ambitions) whom all local patriots should want to take down.  As Ken enumerates, Tran “does not represent the people of his district or community, has practically no legislation to show for his two terms, appears to be isolated by even his Republican colleagues, and most importantly has among the worst voting records on the environment, consumer protection, support for education, and women’s and children’s issues.”

I’ve known Ken Arnold for several years as a dedicated member of DFA (Democracy For America) and Veterans for Peace — with whom he’s been the driving force behind the Arlington West Memorial on Huntington Beach the first Sunday of each month.  He has had a long successful career in Information Technology and has a lovely, fascinating Vietnamese wife, Thanh-Thanh Ho;  it’s their twin eleven-year old nieces the “Minhs” that you hear singing in Vietnamese in the middle of my “I Got A Crush on Debbie Cook” song.  I’ll let Ken speak for himself on what he hopes to accomplish in the California legislature:

“…my campaign is about bringing real representation to the whole district and about bringing more cooperation, reason, common sense and openness to our government. If elected I intend to make great use of th e internet and new technologies to interact with constituents and to keep them very well informed of what I and the rest of the assembly are doing and why. 

The areas of my greatest concern and interest are our environment and energy future, restoring and updating our once great educational systems and solving our terrible and ongoing budget crisis. I will try to make our vast state government more effective and efficient — providing the required services while making the most of our tax dollars. I will fight for universal health care, for our and the world’s environment, for workers’, women’s and everyone’s full rights, for our children, schools, colleges and universities, for our beaches, parks, and libraries, for effective law enforcement, fire protection and other aspects of public safety, for just laws and a state judicial system that may again exercise judgment in the service of justice, for restoring and protecting our infrastructure, for helping bring to California the energy and transportation infrastructure of the 21st century, for rational redistricting and reliable electoral processes that will result in20elected officials responsive to all their constituents, for a growing Orange County and California economy and business community that serves its employees as well as its owners, customers and neighbors and that is profitable yet socially and environmentally responsible, for rational affordable public transportation, for proper and appropriate care for the truly needy elderly and others.”

WOW.  And through that all Ken and Thanh-Thanh never forget to have fun, as witness you’re invited to their first fundraiser party:

This campaign can be won
and we can help turn Orange County Blue!
 Friday, August 8th 6:30 pm8:30 pm
1030 Cannonade Circle, Costa Mesa
Please RSVP to 714-957-0748 or smcampbell@ca.rr.com
Join Us For Dinner &
Support our Progressive Candidate
Ken Arnold for 68th AD
And seriously buy a word.  If all you Juicers who spend all your time bitching about Van Tran each bought one word, Ken would have his statement fee in NO TIME FLAT.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.