IT TOOK A HURRICANE...

...But Congressman William Jefferson (D) LA, is finally gone!

When Hurricane Gustav roared through Louisiana in late Summer, the Secretary of State was forced to change our election schedule. People were displaced, and many polling stations were destroyed or unusable. So our Congressional Primaries were set back one month. This caused our primary run-offs to be held on the date of the General Election in Nov. , and the Congressional general election to be held yesterday, Dec. 6.

William Jefferson Clinton, the crookedest snake in LA politics since Fast Eddie Edwards (and that's saying something) lost his bid to hold on to his Congressional seat yesterday against a political newcomer, Republican Vietnamese refugee Anh 'Joseph' Cao. It's worth a look at this article just to learn a little bit about this Cao guy, and his amazing story.

The Times-Picayune has the full story, but here is the beef.

As predicted, there was a dramatic drop-off in turnout Saturday compared with the Nov. 4 election that featured Barack Obama, now president-elect.

Last month, nearly 164,000 Democrats and independents in the 2nd District cast ballots. Even with the universe of voters expanded Saturday to include all registered voters, only 66,846 showed up to the polls.

In a rare radio interview in advance of the general election, Jefferson had expressed concerns that his base of African-American supporters might assume that he had won re-election last month and stay home Saturday.

And:

With the upset victory, Anh "Joseph" Cao, a eastern New Orleans attorney who fled war-ravaged Saigon as a child, becomes the first Vietnamese-American in Congress. He will represent a district that was specifically drawn to give African-Americans an electoral advantage and one in which two of every three voters are registered Democrats.

My Congressional run-off was interesting, and I'll tell y'all about it later. Gustav probably determined it, too.

All I can say is, Thank God for the occasional hurricane!