Cao-abunga!

On Saturday, political neophyte Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao stunned everyone by defeating longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. William Jefferson for his seat in Congress. Although Jefferson had been indicted on bribery charges (recall $50,000 found in his freezer) nevertheless he had been widely expected to win re-election in his highly Democratic district in Louisiana. Cao's narrow victory is a triumph for democratic values (with a little "d") and also happens to remove an embarrassment to our Democratic values (with a big "D").

Cao will also now become the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress. Moreover, the Republicans appear to have held onto the other seat contested in Louisiana over the weekend, despite massive Democratic efforts to wrest it away. And we all remember that last year, Republican Piyush "Bobby" Jindal was the surprise winner in the Louisiana Governor's race, incidentally also making him the first-ever Indian-American state Governor.

Of course, both upsets were assisted by miserably low turnout, but that is also a testament to the disgust with which Louisianans have come to view their government. The Democratic Party which used to rule Louisiana evidently has begun falling apart--or has become so corrupt it simply cannot continue--while the Republican Party has wisely been working to build a new image for itself. Cao and Jindal are young, urban, and (of course) not white. The old, rural racists that used to form the core of the Republican party in Louisiana appear to have been put out to pasture, or at least to have slipped into the shadows.

House Minority Leader Boehner called Cao "the future" of the Republican Party. I would say rather that Cao and Jindal represent one possible future for the Republican Party. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee represent another. Cao's victory also shows once again that, as LTG likes to remind us, "All politics is local."