By: Kasie Hunt
July 28, 2010 05:21 PM EDT

Source: Politico.com

Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez co-chairs the Congressional Caucus on Vietnam, co-sponsored the Vietnam Human Rights Act, has worked to release Vietnamese political prisoners, employs a full-time Vietnamese caseworker in her California field office and has visited Vietnam twice.

This year, she’s finally facing a candidate who can directly challenge her from inside the community she has been working to help: Van Tran, a Vietnamese American who hasn’t been back to his homeland since April 25, 1975, when his family fled Saigon just five days before the city fell to the North Vietnamese.

And Tran, the Republican challenging Sanchez this fall, is making the race all about Vietnam.

“There’s a big debate in the community whether she’s effective or not — whether she’s doing it for lip service or for votes, because the big question is, after 14 years in the House, what substantial and tangible results can she show in terms of advancing Vietnamese democracy and human rights,” Tran told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday. “Show us your accomplishments — what bills, what legislation, what political prisoners?”

Tran is a popular, term-limited state assemblyman whose political power rests squarely with the rapidly growing Vietnamese American community centered in Little Saigon, a neighborhood of Vietnamese shops, grocery stores and restaurants spanning the Orange County cities of Westminster and Garden Grove.

His constituency has more than doubled in the years since Sanchez was first elected to the House in 1996: Then, Vietnamese Americans accounted for less than 10 percent of the electorate. Now, they comprise almost 25 percent of the district’s voters.

National Republicans were watching — Vietnamese Americans in the district tend to vote GOP — and they pushed Tran hard to get into the race. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee’s recruitment efforts this cycle, can’t stop talking about Tran’s potential.

Sanchez has taken careful notice. Aside from her work in Congress, she appears each year at Little Saigon’s Tet festival wearing traditional Vietnamese garb, and she has traveled to Vietnam — once in 1999 and once in 2000 — to meet with human rights activists. Since those visits, the Vietnamese government has routinely denied her a visa because of her outspoken opposition to its policies. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked Sanchez to accompany her on a state visit to the country, but Sanchez was refused entry.

“Congresswoman Sanchez has been a relentless and effective voice for the Vietnamese community since she was sworn into office, and is recognized as one of the strongest advocates for the rights of the Vietnamese-American community in Congress,” said Adrienne Elrod, Sanchez’s chief of staff.

But visiting the country is actually controversial within the Vietnamese community. “Politically, I would not want to go back. I don’t think it’s safe,” said Tran, who was 10 years old when his family fled. “Even when [Louisiana] Congressman [Anh “Joseph”] Cao … went back earlier this year, there were controversies about that inside the community.” Cao, a Republican, is the first Vietnamese American to serve in Congress.

So far, Tran is faring better than the last Vietnamese American to challenge Sanchez. Tan Nguyen ran against her in 2006, but his campaign sank after he sent fliers to Latinos in the district telling them that they could be deported if they voted. He was eventually indicted and is currently facing trial on charges of obstruction of justice.

Still, Tran trails far behind Sanchez in fundraising — he has raised $725,000 to her $1.3 million — and there are significantly fewer registered Republicans in the district than registered Democrats. Sanchez also finds natural support from the district’s sizable Latino community.

But Tran is closely followed by the ethnic press: There are four Vietnamese TV stations, several Vietnamese-language newspapers and numerous closely followed Vietnamese radio stations. He regularly appears on Vietnamese radio, a cheap and effective way to reach voters. “You can buy radio really cheap on some of these stations — if you’re on the air for half an hour for $180,” said Adam Probolsky, an Orange County pollster and consultant.

And although Sanchez does coordinated outreach to the Vietnamese press, Tran has the lingustic advantage: Sanchez does not speak Vietnamese. “So 7 p.m. at night, you’re talking politics with Van, and he’s on the air for half an hour while people are driving home,” said Probolsky, who ran a campaign in June for a local judge. “We bought Vietnamese press — print and radio, as cheap as can be — but it had a huge impact on the outcome,” he said.