Another Historic First

The election of Obama as President proved that for a large portion of the country a persons skin color is no longer an issue...at least in politics.

Lurking behind some of the election reporting was an implied meme that the extremely strong African-American support for Obama stemmed in large part from identity politics. For a variety of reasons I always thought this was a bunch of crap. Yesterday's result in a delayed Congressional election in Louisiana district that is 60% African-American and 11% Republican proved that even more.

In case you missed it, U.S. Representative William Jefferson, a nine-term Congressman from Louisiana who in 1991 was the first African-American to be elected to Congress in Louisiana since Reconstruction was defeated.

Jefferson lost to a Republican Vietnamese-American attorney named Anh Cao who will become the very first Vietnamese-American in Congress. During his acceptance speech, Cao, who fled war-ravaged Saigon as a child, had at his side his father who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp during that country's civil war.

Granted, Jefferson is under indictment on charges of bribery, money laundering and misusing his congressional office. Still, in 2006 he was reelected even after news of the bribery scandal broke in which federal agents said they had found $90,000 in alleged bribe money hidden in his freezer.

I'm a bright blue dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but in this case I'm very pleased to see the Republican win.

Congratulations Ahn Cao!