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Joseph Cao will be the first Vietnamese member of the House, after his defeat of "embarrassing Democratic crook" William Jefferson.
Congratulations to Ahn Cao, the newly elected representative from the Second District of Louisiana and the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress. Cao ousted William Jefferson, so the Republicans will have a harder time playing the false equivalancy game every time one of their scumbag sitting congressmen is indicted. Cao sounds like a winger for the most part, and was a McCain supporter, but apparently he's not Vitter/Jindal clone. He's quoted in this article as saying, "Politics and religious life don't mix." He's got degrees in physics, philosophy and law, so he's evidently brighter than the rest of the droolers in his party, he can't run for President, and the Dems will get the seat back in two years, so he's the ideal Republican.
As Howie notes, the district is one of the most solidly blue in the country with an African American majority and has a PVI of D+28, so Cao will never be reelected. The DCCC is no doubt already recruiting, and on my teevee yesterday names like James Carville being bandied about.
Sounds like a job for Accountability Now.
There's no reason that a progressive can't be elected in that district, we don't have to swallow some Blue Dog corporate whore "for the sake of the majority." Nor should it be some patronage gift from a political machine.
We'll be reaching out to local bloggers and community leaders soon. But if you know anyone in the district who is a great progressive leader who should be running, let us know.
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Yay! I love making lists. I also love the name “Accountability Now”.
I was so happy to see that Jefferson went down. But what will Pelosi et al do about Rangel?
Accountability Now!
We can put a Better Democrat in LA-02!
Can we make sure Carville is on the list of who not to elect?
Jane, are you sure you want a progressive. After your diatribe about the progressive Caroline Kennedy yesterday I thought you would be interested in yet another party hack.
Is there a local Democracy for America group in the district?
They usually know who would be a good candidate….
DFA groups in Louisiana
I didn’t get a chance to say this but………………
Yeah!! What she said!!!! Apart from an absence of qualifications, Caroline Kennedy has been MIA and she wants our support now? Don’t think so.
As you were.
Carville apparently maintains a residence in that district. If he runs, he will be hard to beat. A primary race would require that the Progressive Candidate win on issues (OMG!) vs Carville name recognition. Fortunately Carville is an obnoxious d*ckhead married to Republican Cheney operative Mary Matalin so we’ve got that going for us.
May I ask about the last Money Bomb? I was sure it would be successful (to the tune of millions of $$) but was sadly mistaken. The goal was to raise money to take on the Democratic leadership and I firmly believe that should be where our efforts are focused.
As I like to write on Greenwald’s blog: Accountability Now! Accountability Now! Accountability Now! What about accountability now? How about now for accountability? Say - who’s up for accountability? Now would be good.
Hope to see some movement on this one of these days.
As a voter in La. 2nd, I can tell you that we have a number of good possible candidates, several of whom ran in the primary. Had the field not been so crowded, Jefferson would’ve lost then. The vote was badly split; Jeff garnered only 20 something + and the second spot went to the only person he could’ve beat: a white woman newscaster who had never before run for office. The remaining AA males split the rest. This is a very politically savvy district; the low turnout in the general was not solely attributable to apathy. In many cases, people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Jefferson OR a republican and made the calculated and painful decision to stay home. IMO Carville would be a huge mistake. He’s not liked, this is a primarily African-American constituency, and we prefer our familiar local pols. (Although Carville maintains a home uptown - I’m not sure it’s in the District - he’s not really “from here”.) Two up and comers from the primary are James Carter and Cedric Richmond. It would be interesting to see if a lot of money from out of state put on Carville would trump a reasonably savvy, if underfinanced, campaign run by one of them, both well known and liked. I’d bet on homegrown.
The NYTimes today has a piece on Cao, stating that he hasn’t said how he stands vis a vis the usual Republican issues. I like his background, and maybe he won’t be awful. Just glad to be shot of Jefferson. You betcha.
Why is this ‘history and amazement”. The voters threw a corrupt politician out of office in a Democratic district by a landslide. Too bad the Republicans in Alaska don’t act the same way with their corrupt Senators and Congressman.
This morning Chris Cilliza has an article titled “Republicans On The March?” at WaPo’s online site…and he’s taking quite a bit of heat there for this idiotic article. Somehowm his premise goes, because the Republicans took a Senate seat in deep south Georgia, and a House seat from a criminal in Louisiana, the Republicans are staging some kind of big comeback!
These “liberal” pundits like Chris make me crazy when they write trash like this. They, more then the greedy and stupid politicians, are responsible for the sad state of the US these days…
Rather then being champions of the people and exposing the corruption of our political class, they are too busy kissing up to them so they can be invited to their houses for barbeques!
Totally agreed. Carville will not be the candidate to win.
We need an African American who is not associated with the corrupt people around here. Unfortunately there are too many corrupt people around here.
I am guessing Cao may not be so bad. I read an article that he first ran for office as an independent.
I would not count on him being a Republican Rubber stamp if he plans on having a prayer of re-election. This is a very blue area, but he studied for the priesthood and that may have a lot of sway with local folks of the Catholic persuasion. The Catholic church has a decent reputation around here.