Interesting.
The chairman of the Republican National Committee said Cao's election Saturday night showed that, even battered and bruised from political drubbings in the past two years, Republicans "still know how to win elections." House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) was more blunt, issuing a memo Sunday declaring: "The future is Cao."
Not really.
In LA-02, Republican Joseph Cao became the nation’s first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress by defeating incumbent Democrat William Jefferson in the nation’s 28th most Democratic district. Seems pretty impressive, until you factor in that Jefferson was an indicted crook caught with $90,000 in bribe money stashed in his freezer. Even then, it took a low-turnout runoff election to oust him. Cao is a dead man walking — he either engages in that time-honored Louisiana tradition of switching parties, or he suffers the same fate as Michael Patrick Flanagan, the Republican who toppled indicted Chicago Rep. Dan Rostenkowski in 1994. Once the crook was out of office, Chicago voters got rid of their useful idiot two years later.
That's me writing in The Hill, and it about sums up Cao's future. He either switches (no big deal in Louisiana), and faces a competitive Democratic primary in which he may or may not survive (but probably not), or he stays a Republican and definitely loses in 2010. Either way, a Democrat will hold this seat soon enough, and either way, the future of the GOP won't be Cao.
What's more, at a time when Republicans are talking about "going back to their roots", Cao did nothing of the sort in winning the seat. Exhibit A, look at his campaign website:

First of all, there's nothing about being a Republican on the page, not too surprising. But that "Action Agenda", aside from generic bromides, is nothing that wouldn't be on a Democratic candidate's site. So if you click on "Read more about My Action Agenda", you get sent to this page, which once again has nothing about "family values" or "eliminate taxes" or "bomb the terrorists". In fact, Cao wants "full funding of 100 year flood protection", and he wants "additional funding to our first responders for public safety". Sounds liberal. So what about his paid media?
Okay, in this ad, Cao says he "oppose(s) new taxes" (though nothing about reducing existing ones), says he supports coastal restoration, and hits the ethics stuff again. He is very pro-immigration, though he hid that in his campaign. And as a former Jesuit, he probably hid some reactionary views on choice, stem cell research and the like. This is, indeed, one of the most Democratic districts in the country. He couldn't go too far out on a limb.
So is that the future of the GOP? A candidate who doesn't demagogue on taxes or immigration, who wants increased public investment on infrastructure, who hides his views on regressive social issues, and who is afraid to tell anyone he is a Republican and runs a stealth Democratic campaign?
Well, if that's the future of the GOP, then Republicans might have a chance.
As long as they run against indicted crooks who get caught with $90,000 stashed in their freezer.