Posted on 09/23/2004 4:56:26 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A whopping 71 percent of the Vietnamese-American community plans to vote for President Bush in the upcoming election, according to a recent national poll by the multi-ethnic news agency New California Media.
Dan Tran, a member of Vietnamese Americans Against John Kerry, isn’t surprised. Instead he anticipates an even higher percentage, predicting Vietnamese will virtually vote unanimously for Bush.
“I think 90 percent of the Vietnamese in America will vote against Kerry,” he said.
Amid an already heated election littered with issues surrounding Iraq and the economy, in the eyes of some Vietnamese the sole factor determining their vote has been their resentment of presidential candidate John Kerry’s record with their homeland.
For anti-communist Vietnamese who fled the country, Kerry’s anti-Vietnam war stance and policies on current relations with Vietnam have only evoked anger.
This has fueling their hostility to his candidacy and helping to sway an overwhelming proportion of votes to Bush, leaving only 11 percent backing Kerry as indicated by the poll, conducted by national polling organization Bendixen Associates.
While the number of Vietnamese registered to vote in 2000 was near 325,000 according to U.S. Census reports, Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen Associates, said the number of Vietnamese registered voters now could be as high as 600,000.
“So their vote will be a little less than 1 percent (of the total registered voters). If you were to look at the 18 battleground states, at most there will be 100,000 Vietnamese votes in those states,” Bendixen said.
With the number of Vietnamese voters growing, Vietnamese opponents of Kerry hope their community’s support for Bush will deny Kerry his shot at the White House.
LSA senior Mary Tran, who is not related to Dan Tran, says this strident opposition toward Kerry is evident in her father.
“My dad is voting for Bush because of Kerry’s Vietnam record and what he did in the past,” she said.
Citing Kerry’s protests against the Vietnam War and his later attempts to normalize relations with Vietnam during 1995, Mary Tran said her father believes Kerry only aided what he sees as the brutal dictatorship governing Vietnam today.
Kerry’s past does not merely reflect on Vietnam, but also his inability to lead the United States, said Dan Tran.
“Kerry joined the Vietnam War and then he opposed it. That’s his ‘flip-flopping’,” Dan Tran said, who is also president of the Vietnam Human Rights Project. “He then misled America about the Vietnam War, when he testified in court against U.S. soldiers,” said Dan Tran, adding that the United States could have won the war.
Most recently, Kerry blocked a bill that would have reduced U.S. aid to Vietnam in order to pressure the country to end its human rights abuses. Kerry’s opposition to the bill further deepened the divide between Vietnamese and his candidacy, Dan Tran added.
Not all Vietnamese communities plan to vote against Kerry. Engineering freshman Quang Nguyen also said his Florida Vietnam community would probably vote for Kerry, believing that even with his Vietnam war record, Kerry is still the superior candidate. “I feel that he is the person who would most stand up for more immigration from Vietnam in America,” he added.
But the rationale behind most Vietnamese backing President Bush has not solely been weighed on Kerry’s wartime record. In fact, support for the Republicans has its origins since Vietnam refugees immigrated to America during the Vietnam War.
Andrew Lam, an NCM translator who helped conduct the poll, said a key reason for Vietnamese support of Bush is because many of them were born in Vietnam.
“I think part of it is 80 percent of the population are immigrants from overseas. And many of them still remember the Vietnam War and still perceive a strong foreign policy as a way of keeping the world stable,” he said.
As most Vietnamese Americans were from South Vietnam, Lam said many are anti-communists and believe the Republicans are extremely anti-communist.
In turn, Lam added, it’s expected for them to oppose Kerry because of his anti-war attitude during the Vietnam War.
“(Vietnamese immigrants) were basically the losers of the war. They believe that the war protesters in America caused the U.S. to withdraw and lose the war.”
In recent years, polls have also showed Vietnamese consistently voting conservative, Bendixen said. “They are very conservative in the war of Iraq. On issues like gay marriage they have been very strong (conservative voters). The issue of 9/11, they were very patriotic. So they tend to feel best represented by Republicans.”
Yet while Vietnamese have voted conservative in the past, the direction of elections to come is uncertain since the next generation of Vietnamese may begin to alter that path.
Along with the overwhelming Vietnamese vote, the poll also indicated that among Asian Americans aged 18 to 39, 51 percent will vote for Kerry versus 27 percent for Bush.
Lam said younger Vietnamese would most likely follow the same trend.
“They grew up in the U.S. so their concerns are very different. The younger generation in this election is facing a possible draft. They face the economy and the war. The issues are domestic,” he said.
But University students say the Vietnamese vote for both generations is not as clear-cut as the NCM poll shows.
Business School senior Teresa Nguyen said her family is likely to vote for Kerry.
“Looking at my parents’ community, it is mainly blue collar working class, rather than anything like the Republicans. So they have voted for Democrats in the past. I think they are also more concerned about current events,” she said.
As for Vietnamese students, many have yet to decide, feeling they have not looked into the election enough or they are unsatisfied with both candidates. Pharmacy senior Mandee Nguyen said, “I’ve heard stories on both sides. I’m not even sure if I want to vote, because I’m not happy with either candidate.”
Whoa, wait a minute, slow down. Kerry was in Vietnam?
"By November second, the Traitor will rue the day he ever slandered the reputations of millions of Viet Nam veterans."
From your lips to God's ear.
This draft rumor needs to be squelched NOW.
I'd like to see that on a poll.
Bump!
Man, I almost posted: "What? This is an outrage! What are the other 29% going to do?"Until I read this part:
Dan Tran, a member of Vietnamese Americans Against John Kerry, isn’t surprised. Instead he anticipates an even higher percentage, predicting Vietnamese will virtually vote unanimously for Bush.
“I think 90 percent of the Vietnamese in America will vote against Kerry,” he said.Yeah! That's more like it !!
Bump!
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