Election Dirty Tricks Well Under Way
Posted on | October 19, 2006
Guess who’s trying to suppress the Latino vote in California? You’re right.
A state attorney general’s investigation into letters apparently designed to suppress Latino voter turnout in Orange County for the upcoming election is focusing on the campaign of Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen, according to people familiar with the inquiry.
Nguyen, who has made halting illegal immigration part of his platform, is running an underdog campaign to unseat Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who represents Santa Ana and is Orange County’s only Democratic member of Congress.
Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, appearing Wednesday on the Patt Morrison show on 89.3 KPCC FM, said his office believes it knows who financed the letters, but said interviews were still being conducted and declined to provide further detail.
“That’s the preliminary assessment, that there were one or more Republican candidates for office that were associated with this effort,” Lockyer said.
Nguyen is denying any involvement, blaming an unnamed staffer. His own party chairman, however, is pointing the finger (on the record) at the candidate himself:
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. –Orange County Republican leaders on Thursday called for the withdrawal of a GOP congressional candidate they believe sent a letter threatening Hispanic immigrant voters with arrest.
Tan D. Nguyen denied knowing anything about the letter in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press but said he fired a campaign staffer who may have been responsible for it.
County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh, however, said that after speaking with state investigators and the company that distributed the mailer, he believes Nguyen had direct knowledge of “obnoxious and reprehensible” letter. He told the AP that the party’s executive committee voted unanimously to urge Nguyen to drop out of the race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
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