Democrats and Vietnamese Americans- The Cao and Van Tran Race Examined

On Wednesday I talked the Cao race and called out two Republicans by name as to that race. See I Am A Sad Louisiana Republican - The Defeat of Congressman Cao of New Orleans.

I am going to have more on one of those people hopefully this weekend. However what about the democrats, center left, progressive religious folks and various other issue groups that were AWOL.

Pro-Ecclesia has a good post on this at Why Is the Left Hostile to Vietnamese-Americans?.By the way what a WOW quote from Jim Wallis he has discovered from the past.

First let me say where I differ a tad. I give Obama a pass here. This was one of the few seats where Obama could get involved and it would help the DEMS. If if he had failed to get involve the congressional black caucus would have been yelling from the rooftops. If the democrats failed to take this seat it would have been a major embarrassment for Senator Landrieu and her brother the Mayor of New Orleans (whom many blacks broke from the ranks and voted for). Further if the DEMS had lost this seat talk about looking bad. I actually don't think in reality Cao was shocked or hurt by Obama's endorsement for his opponent. I think he was attempting in a clever way to show the ethical issues Richmond had. Finally despite what many conservatives think Cao was not quite as bipartisan on certain issues that were important to Obama as many think. Think Cap and Trade and issues relating to oil and energy policy.

Finally as to Obama this was a particular interesting non stop non personal appearance for OBama this campaign season. It would seem his non Presidential visit here was counterproductive to people like Fayard that needed a huge black vote out of New Orleans. If it was because he was giving Cao a break , or because there was discord among some local democrats over Richmond we just don't know. Perhaps he was told by both Melancon and Fayard that even his appearance it NOLA would be counterproductive for the State Dem vote. You could bet it would put both in a bad situation when they failed to show up for obvious reason. Well we just don't know.

However Pro Ecclesia hits on some other issues. In the back ground of this race were unspoken racial issues. There is the history of blacks and Vietnamese not having the best of relationships in New Orleans.

We know right after Cao got elected many black ministers were quite open about a recall effort because well Cao was not the right color. We also had in the race the shcoking statements made by the head of the Democrat party that Cao was pretty much a racist and represented the new head of the infamous white's citizen councils. That shocking conduct is so routine down here among democrats I guess people forgot they should have been outraged over those comments. That was playing the race card in a very open sad way.

On the huge final depressing note it was quite evident for all of Cao's reaching out in the black community that they responded by giving him very very few votes.

He mentions the race in California and that needs to be really looked at!! I can only imagine what was going on there. Yet it seems people don't seem to care to investigate it.

One thing is clear Republicans really need to take advantage of this situation. If the Republicans win the White House in 2012 Cao needs to be offered some position. I think that is an important sign to send to the Vietnamese community the GOP cares about them. Further if Tran out in California wants to run again we need to put all resources into it.

For certain issue groups like immigration reform we need to start publicly asking them why they were not much more active in Cao's campaign. Are they concerned about the issue of just Democrat hacks.