Local/national politics: Cao ousts Jefferson in Second District, LA

[PeterB]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081207/ap_o...a_congress

... while I'm not generally in favor of Republicans per se, I gotta say, I'm glad that Jefferson lost his seat.

[vision63]

Still needed that seat to stay blue. That's a step backwards for women, for the poor/destitute, the environment. Jefferson is corrupt but he was a pretty reliable vote for those causes. Cau will be just more of the same GOP destructiveness.

[swampy]

vision63 wrote:
Still needed that seat to stay blue. That's a step backwards for women, for the poor/destitute, the environment. Jefferson is corrupt but he was a pretty reliable vote for those causes. Cau will be just more of the same GOP destructiveness.

V, please explain how you can compartmentalize Jefferson's character flaws vs his voting actions in order to justify keeping a Democratic seat? Is he supposed to be rewarded for his bad criminal behavior because he votes a certain way on some issues? He's a crook, but he's my crook?

[vision63]

swampy wrote:
[quote=vision63]
Still needed that seat to stay blue. That's a step backwards for women, for the poor/destitute, the environment. Jefferson is corrupt but he was a pretty reliable vote for those causes. Cau will be just more of the same GOP destructiveness.

V, please explain how you can compartmentalize Jefferson's character flaws vs his voting actions in order to justify keeping a Democratic seat? Is he supposed to be rewarded for his bad criminal behavior because he votes a certain way on some issues? He's a crook, but he's my crook?
That ain't far from the truth. You fight a battle where the battle is. I would prefer someone "other" than Jefferson but in the macro-view, congress can swing at any time so every seat counts. One thing I know about the GOP, they're competitive and they're relentless. You don't give an inch unless you like losing.

[mattkime]

democrats are always the worst where they have an inherent grip on power.

[swampy]

Vision..."One thing I know about the GOP, they're competitive and they're relentless. You don't give an inch unless you like losing."

Funny you should say that. I was reading a couple right wing blogs today and it seems many of them feel just the opposite about the Republican party and that they are not 'relentless' enough. They feel McCain turned his cheek and played the Officer and the Gentleman too many times when getting smeared by the Dems.

Sorry I don't have any links. It wasn't anything that I ever thought I might want to quote in this forum. LOL

[PeterB]

The one, big problem I have with Cao is that he's stated that he's firmly anti-abortion. THAT is definitely a step backwards for women. Otherwise though, he's said that he's fairly open on a variety of issues. Whether that's really true, we'll see -- I'm worried that his strongest backing is coming from his church. The major problem was that the Dems had not been able to come up with a decent challenger to Jefferson-- he ran against Helena Moreno in the primaries, who ran a really lackluster campaign-- I thought she was a good candidate, but she didn't perform well in the primary.

[laarree]

The people of Lousiana can be proud that finally they have elected a
Cao to Congress.