No sarcasm this time. It was actually expected that he would be re-elected as he was in 2006 despite being under investigation by the FBI for months. Instead, Anh “Joseph” Cao has become the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.
Republicans made an aggressive push to take the 2nd District seat from the 61-year-old Jefferson, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery, laundering money and misusing his congressional office.
“The people of the 2nd District have spoken,” Cao, 41, told supporters at a restaurant near the French Quarter. “We want new direction. We want action. We want accountability.”
In a speech that was gracious but stopped short of concession, Jefferson blamed low voter turnout for his showing and said supporters may have thought he was a shoo-in after he won a Nov. 4 primary in the predominantly black and heavily Democratic district.
“I think people just ran out of gas a bit,” he said. “People today flat didn’t come out in large numbers.”
Greg Rigamer, a New Orleans political consultant, said his analysis showed turnout in predominantly white sections of the district was double that in black areas. He said that helped push Cao to victory over Jefferson, who became Louisiana’s first black congressman since Reconstruction when he took office in 1991.
“This is quite a feat,” Rigamer said of Cao’s victory.
Indeed. Michelle Malkin has a bit on his history. Cao came to the United States after the fall of Saigon in 1975. He went on to earn his law degree, in addition to degrees in philosophy and physics. Quite a remarkabe story, really.
Why are we suddenly seeing Democrats losing run-off or late elections? Because Barack Obama wasn’t on the ballot for his base to turn out for. Just the latest evidence that Congressional Democrats seem to have mostly rode to a bigger majority due to people turning out to vote for Obama and voting for the Democratic Congressional candidate at the same time.
Congratulations to Mr. Cao.
7. December 2008 at 2:31 pm
I don’t think it was low voter turnout for Jefferson. Finally, voters realized that he laundered money, mis-used his office and was an out-and-out thief! They finally caught up with him and did just what they should have done–booted him out of office. Should do the same thing to the rest of those liberal illuminatis in Washington who are just as crooked as Jefferson! I hope Cao can give the people a new direction, action and accountability that he desires.