CNN-Cao (Rep) Projected Winner in Louisiana 02 House Race

Should Congress Have a Cao? by Quin Hillyer, American Spectator Magazine Sit down and make yourself comfortable, because this is one of those stories you just won't want to miss. It's the kind of story for which this poor pen might not do justice. And it's the kind of story of which the world of politics needs more examples. It's a story that effectively starts three days before the fall of Saigon in 1975, when eight-year-old Joseph Cao escaped South Vietnam with a brother and sister and eventually made his way to the United States, where he settled with an uncle. As the story continues today, Cao is the Republican nominee for Congress from Louisiana's Second Congressional District (mostly New Orleans), running against William "Cold Cash" Jefferson -- also known as "Dollar Bill" -- who for years has been fighting multiple-count bribery-related indictments after federal agents in 2005 caught nefarious activities on tape and then found $90,000 from the taped transaction hidden in his refrigerator freezer. Because the congressional primaries were delayed by Hurricane Gustav, the general election was pushed back to Saturday, December 6. But before you read about the congressional campaign, you'll want to know about what happened between Saigon and today. What happened first was that Cao's father, a South Vietnamese military officer, was sent to a Viet Cong "re-education camp" for six years. That's why his children had to escape Vietnam without him. As a certain recent presidential candidate could tell you, a Viet Cong camp is not a place where one is treated well. Anyway, Cao settled in Indiana for four ears, then resettled in Houston for high school, then earned a B.S. in physics in 1990 from Baylor University. Baylor is a Baptist university. But upon graduation, Cao joined the Jesuit order. For six years he remained a Jesuit -- novice, scholastic, regent -- while earning a graduate degree in philosophy from Fordham University, several times doing social (anti-poverty) work abroad (including in his native Vietnam) and then teaching philosophy at Loyola University of New Orleans. Whoohoo! we took over this seat. Click on title for full biographical article