Posted on 08/06/2004 12:17:37 PM PDT by Brian Mosely
Prior to the Democratic national convention in Boston, journalists in both mainstream and ethnic press queried Vietnamese in the United States and in Vietnam on their views of the two presidential candidates. The contrast is startling.
The majority in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam interviewed by the Associated Press said that they don't pay much attention to current events in the United States because they are poor and struggling to survive. But those who do have time to read, said they support John Kerry because he and Sen. John McCain, both Vietnam veterans, have in the past pushed for trade normalization between the United States and Vietnam. Mr. Duoc, 74, in Can Tho, said that now Vietnamese only want to look forward.
Mr. Tam, an owner of a pharmacy that also used to sell health supplies and medicines to American GIs said that he would vote for Kerry if he lived in the United States.
Back in the United States, however, residents like Pauline Tran in Fairfax, Va. said that she would vote for Bush. Kerry, she said, was an anti-war activist and was part of the reason why South Vietnam was defeated. Others said they will vote for Bush to punish Kerry.
Dung Nguyen, who lives in the United States, says that he supports Bush because, "He is against dictatorship, helped Vietnam fight AIDS, and he is anti-human trafficking."
Minh Nguyen said that Kerry doesn't deserve his vote because "Kerry did not support the U.S. resolution against human rights violations in Vietnam."
In a Cali Today poll, 90 percent of Vietnamese Americans said they would vote for Bush, and only 10 percent said they would vote for Kerry.
Vietnamese living in Communist Vietnam, on the other hand, favored Kerry over Bush.
Imagine that.
No surprizes here. Vietnamese living under Communism support Kerry...Vietnamese living in freedom support Bush. About sums it up I think.
"The majority in the Mekong Delta region Vietnam . . . are poor and struggling to survive."
Thanks to Kerrry and his other pro-communist agitators from the 1970s.
Imagine that. What a coincidence. You might almost imagine that VNs in communist VN today are not free to speak their true thoughts.
This is not surprising at all. Kerry is a hero to the communist Vietnamese and was an enemy to the South Vietnamese. ... and they know it.
The number of Viet Namese American Catholics would probably surprise most people. That is part of the reason for this very high poll number.
The majority in the Mekong Delta region Vietnam . . . are poor and struggling to survive."
YOU MEAN IT'S NOT A WORKERS PARADISE? But, Kerry told the Senate in 1971, that all these people wanted was to work in their rice paddies. HUMMMMM. I guess as today, he doesn't support the liberation of people from Dictatorships.
I really don't think it has to do with that. It has everything to do with the fact that they know what Kerry has done to the hope of democracy in Vietnam.
Celebrate diversity! Join the party supported by more Vietnamese-Americans, Amish-American and Military Americans!
Maybe you missed part of the reply. It was John Kerry that said, all they wanted to do was work in the rice paddies.(1971)
How much do American voters like these results of Kerry's previous negotiations with foreign leaders (in Paris)?
The world that
Kerry's Coalition of the Unwilling
made for the Vietnamese children
BBC photo of DaNang school children at ceremony commemorating the fall of Saigon
Fox News has picked up on this today:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128301,00.html
While older Vietnamese-Americans may see Kerry as a turncoat, many younger voters are more open-minded, said Christian Collet, a pollster with Pacific Opinions Research (search).
"There is definitely a handful ... that wants to put war behind them and move forward with a constructive dialogue with Vietnam. And to that extent, John Kerry will get a handful of votes from those people," Collet said.
Another reason Vietnamese-Americans criticize Kerry is that he has worked to block a bill forcing communist Vietnam to clean up its human rights abuses (search). The bill passed 410 to 1 in the House, but Kerry blocked it in the Senate. Kerry has claimed that the best way to improve abuses in Vietnam is to engage the communists, not punish them.
There are 1.1 million Vietnamese immigrants in the US with 447,000 in California. If they vote 90% for Bush, it could have an impact.
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