Joseph Cao elected to the House

Meet Joseph Cao, the man who just replaced (by special election) disgraced US Congressman William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Cao fled to the United States when he was 8, learned English, earned degrees in physics and philosophy, and joined the Catholic seminary. When his views on how best to serve the poor changed, Cao went to law school, began a practice specializing in immigration, settled in Venetian Isles and started a family.

In his bid to unseat Rep. William Jefferson in the 2nd Congressional District, however, Cao must try to overcome three tall hurdles: He's not a Democrat, he's not black and he has never held public office. Indeed, in his only other election bid, Cao, running then as an independent, finished fifth of six candidates.

Though Jefferson's star has dimmed considerably since federal authorities charged him in a wide-ranging bribery scheme, the nine-term incumbent remains a force in local politics.

New Orleans Times-Picayune via nola.com - Newcomer Joseph Cao hopes to unseat U.S. Rep. William Jefferson

See also:

The Christian Science Monitor: Scandal-Plagued Louisiana Congressman Ousted by Little-Known Republican

And in the 8th District of North Carolina...

Last spring, it came to my attention that former textile mill worker Larry Kissell was running (again) against Robin Hayes (an heir to the Cannon textile fortune) in North Carolina's 8th Congressional District:

North Carolina, first in the South for its share of jobs in manufacturing, long benefited from a form of outsourcing. Decades ago Northern manufacturers shifted jobs to low-wage, Southern states with severe restrictions on organized labor. Now the "old economy" parts of all these states are reeling from the post-NAFTA version of outsourcing. Since 1993 North Carolina has bled more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs, according to state government estimates--one-fourth of its total. The pace of closures isn't slacking, either. Last year 10 percent of the state's textile jobs were lost, with at least 10,000 more manufacturing workers out of luck. In Biscoe after Biscoe, unemployment keeps climbing. Even in relatively prosperous Cumberland County, with its two expanding military bases, Wal-Mart is the number-one private employer. "Good jobs are coming to North Carolina," says Kissell. "They're just not coming here."

[...]

Now a high school social studies teacher, Larry Kissell previously worked twenty-seven years in an even larger (and now closed) textile plant in neighboring Star. Kissell hinged his dark-horse campaign in 2006 on his intimate understanding not only of how people have been kicked in the pocketbook but in the gut as well. "We didn't have time to transition," he says, ambling down Mill Hill for an hour's worth of door-to-door campaigning. "It was gone. It was gone. And so much of the structure of the town just left us."

Kissell was one of the luckier ones: a Wake Forest University graduate who was able to land a job at East Montgomery High when the end was nigh for his plant. But when he decided to challenge four-term incumbent Robin Hayes in 2006, Kissell's only previous elected offices had been president of the Biscoe Lions Club and deacon of the First Baptist Church of Biscoe.

Mill Hill Populism, The Nation, 24 April 2008

The Washington Post, covering the race today (among many others) at The Fix blog, reports:

North Carolina's 8th district (R): Rep. Robin Hayes (R) drew national headlines earlier this week for all the wrong reasons. Warming up a crowd before a John McCain rally, Hayes told the crowd that "liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God." After denying he said it, Hayes acknowledged he did but said he simply didn't remember saying it. Um, ok. Even before this foible Democrats insisted that 2006 nominee Larry Kissell was well positioned to win in a district with a considerable black population (27 percent).

I'd say so. Kissell came within a few hundred votes of unseating Hayes in 2006.

"When I get angry, I stamp my feet..."

Therapy and healing for disappointed Clinton supporters, via Jon Stewart:

TNR: Neo-McCain

Nowhere has McCain's willingness to question his own previous assumptions been more dramatic than on foreign policy. When he first arrived in Washington, he was essentially a realist, arguing that U.S. military power should only be used to protect vital national interests. Since the late '90s, however, he has joined forces with neoconservatives to support a crusade aimed at overthrowing hostile and undemocratic regimes--by force, if necessary--and installing in their place democratic, pro-American governments. Unlike many Republicans, he enthusiastically backed Bill Clinton's intervention in Kosovo. Moreover, he was pushing for Saddam Hussein's forcible overthrow years before September 11--at a time when George W. Bush was still warning against the arrogant use of American might.

And therein lies my McCain dilemma--and, perhaps, yours. If, like me, you believe that the war in Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster, then you are likely disturbed by McCain's early and continuing support for it--indeed, he advocates sending more troops to that strife-torn land--and by his advocacy of an approach to Iran that could lead to another fruitless war. At the same time, he has shown an admirable willingness to reevalute his views when events have proved them wrong. The question, then, comes down to this: Is John McCain capable of changing his mind about a subject very close to his heart--again?

The making of an überhawk: Neo-McCain, by John Judis, The New Republic, October 9, 2006

WFB on electoral schadenfreude

Voting is what you do every two years—and then, mostly, repine, wondering whether democracy really does anything for you beyond giving that little throb of tactile pleasure in recording your enthusiasm for one candidate or—and this pleasure is very keen—your loathing for another candidate. That last is a vital contribution to democratic hygiene, effected by candidates who arouse every hate gland in your withered frame, thereby offering a pure draught of remedial youthful joy, and you leave the voting booth humming “John Brown's Body.”

-- William F. Buckley, Vote for Lieberman?, September 26, 2006, National Review

Related: The (surprising) history of the song John Brown's Body, which was *not* originally written about the famous abolitionist, and which of course eventually became The Battle Hymn Of The Republic ("Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!")