Wingnut Lady Furious At Joseph Cao, In His District

The current Southern Republican Leadership Conference is famously happening in New Orleans, right within the district of Anh "Joseph" Cao, who only won because his Democratic challenger was a terrible international criminal, and will lose in November, probably. His district is approximately 100 to 200% Democratic, so he voted for the House health care package the first time aroundonlylast fall, winning the respect of his GOP peers. So he was at the SRLC today, talking to who else but goddamn hero Dave Weigel, when some crazy lady came up to harass him, and Weigel did his "Weigel thing" where he hears out crazy people and types it up for the Internet.

"I supported you," said Kim Hasney, a photographer from Jefferson Parish. "I can't support you anymore."

"You have to understand," said Cao, "that I represent a district that's 70 percent Democrat."

Cao thanked Hasney for her honestly, but after she sparred a bit with other Republicans about what it was fair to expect from Cao, she told me of her disappointment with how he was using his vote.

"He had fundraisers, he had meetings, all in the suburbs -- the white suburbs," said Hasney, who attended one of those events. "He had nothing in the district. We got him elected. Then, he goes and says 'but I have to represent my district,' which is all liberal, giveaway, spread-the-wealth, welfare, black. We thought he would try to change the demographics of that district by supporting things that were not giveaway things. You know, supporting things that would get them out of the ghetto."

Hasney made it clear that she opposed Cao's votes because she thought they were the wrong way to lift poor blacks in New Orleans out of poverty. "I'm not just talking about black people," she said. "The Vietnamese people flourish in that area because they're workers."

Cao, she said, should have focused on free market solutions that could help other residents lift themselves up by their bootstraps.

"I thought that was what he was going to do," she said. "As a conservative Republican, bring a work ethic, bring a non-welfare ethic."

She's not a racist. She just has no idea what has been happening in Congress for the past 1.5 years, which makes her sound like a racist when she tries to talk about these things -- things that were weaker market solutions far to the right of anything liberals wanted, ideally. Also, it doesn't matter how much cash the benevolent white folks would give his campaign. If he voted like a wingnut, he'd be out in his first re-election campaign. And he did, and he will be.

So the lesson is, people should shut up unless they actually pay attention to policy and politics, or they will be mocked on the Internet, thank you.

[ Washington Post ]