Not I, Said The Cat

Sorry. This is why you will never see me running for public office. Too much pandering required. The regalia is nice but these guys look straight stupid!

What's that white male mayoral candidate doing dressed in a traditional Vietnamese robe and attempting a phrase or two in Vietnamese?

Why, politicking, of course, and demonstrating that San Jose's Vietnamese-American community has achieved an importance in local races that candidates for the city's highest office cannot ignore.

Vietnamese-Americans are "getting into the mainstream," said mayoral candidate Chuck Reed, and ``elected officials are paying attention." Reed certainly is, along with fellow Councilman Dave Cortese and Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, the candidates whose campaigns for the June mayoral primary are the most organized and best-funded to date.

At recent events celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese festival of the Lunar New Year, Reed, Cortese and Chavez participated in the same ways that candidates have at other ethnic festivals in America for decades.

Saturday, at the Tet Friendship Festival at the fairgrounds, the three joined other elected officials in a flag ceremony and then in the tradition of feeding dollars to a dragon for good luck.

All three appeared in the Tet parade in downtown San Jose on Jan. 29, as they have done for the past half-dozen years, where elected officials rode in convertibles. Reed and Cortese donned multi-colored traditional robes. They ventured a greeting in Vietnamese.

At both events, Reed, Cortese and Chavez each set up campaign booths in an exhibition hall and passed out fliers in Vietnamese and English.