Damned immigrants

Blogger is truly blogged today...must be all those drunken Mets bloggers and their recriminations.

But this is priceless.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19 — The Orange County Republican Party asked one of its Congressional candidates on Thursday to withdraw from the November election after a campaign worker from his office sent a letter threatening Hispanic voters with jail if they went to the polls.

The candidate, Tan Nguyen, who is running on an anti-immigration platform, said in a news release on Thursday: “Evidently, an employee took it upon herself to allow our database to be used to send out the letter. It was disseminated without my authorization or approval. The employee has been discharged.”

The letter, which The Los Angeles Times reported was sent to about 14,000 voters in central Orange County last week, wrongly claimed that immigrants could be subject to criminal penalties if they voted in a federal election. Immigrants may vote only if they are naturalized citizens.

The letter also claimed that anti-immigration groups would be able to access a federal computer system containing the names of those who vote in October and November. No such database exists.

Despite Mr. Nguyen’s disavowing involvement with the letter, local Republican leaders said they thought he had played a direct role in it, said Adam Probolsky, a spokesman.

“The Republican Party of Orange County has asked Mr. Nguyen to resign his candidacy,” Mr. Probolsky said. “We condemn all voter intimidation, and Mr. Nguyen is not a welcome member of our party.”

Mr. Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant, is running an underdog campaign for the 47th Congressional District seat held by a five-term Democrat, Loretta Sanchez, a member of the House Hispanic Caucus. The district has a sizable Vietnamese and Hispanic population.

Some immigrants are better than others, I guess.