Advertisement

There Is No Racism In the Conservative Movement

Dave Weigel recounts Rep Joseph Cao’s dialogue with Kim Hasney, a photographer from Jefferson County who used to be a Cao enthusiast but is upset by his relatively moderate voting record:

“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.

Advertisement

“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.”

We’re a long way from the days of “The Future is Cao.”