Town Hall in New Orleans with Cao (R)

[MountainLaurel]

In the Irish Channel, an Uptown neighborhood near the Garden District that is one of those poverty-stricken areas abutting the Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless. Some of the highlights:

Names for question-askers were collected as you came in (but not the questions) and drawn out of a fishbowl. The second person to speak walked forwarded and handed him $8,000 worth of dental and medical bills that she can't pay because her employer does not offer insurance and she doesn't make a living wage (this is a HUGE issue in NO, where tourism is the biggest "industry"). No protesters, and it was fairly peaceable. But it's quite obvious that Cao won't commit on a vote or even an opinion, even if his pet issue of abortion is taken off the table. Hell, he was asked point blank what he DOES stand for, and he couldn't/wouldn't even answer that. However, I was rather fascinated by his claim that he would have voted against the Iraq War, which may have been one of the inadvertently explosive comments of the night. I'm sure his corporate masters at Exxon and Shell aren't going to like that one bit. They put him into office, and I'm sure they won't shy against taking him out.

It was quite obvious that the audience was heavily in favor of health care reform. It was equally obvious that those who were against could not provide any cogent argument that didn't involve the phrases "socialism," "big government," or "free-market competition." Most of them sounded like they needed medication. I sat down next to two of them -- I knew once I saw the star-spangled hat sitting next to her and all of the flag pins.

[MountainLaurel]

1. Mr. Laurel's comments on Facebook

" . . . just attended a town hall meeting on health care reform presided over by his congressional representative, who explained that the concerns expressed by constituents "were shared by many" and that "it was complicated." Beyond that..., Congressman Cao was evidently unable to shed any additional light on the subject."

That's my smartass for you.

[Cresent City Kid]

2. That's my old neck of the woods

If not for Katrina I would have been there. I'm not missing Bobby Jindal though.

(edit)People can't believe how close poverty is to the Garden District as you pointed out, like one city block!

[MountainLaurel]

3. No, Jindal is a nightmare unto himself

But at the moment he's too busy working on his 2012 campaign to bother himself with crazy details like serving his constituents. Typical Repuke.

[Parker CA]

4. Awesome recap! Love the woman who presented the medical bills. That's an awesome tactic. They

should hand out pills to mellow the crazy on these fools.

[MountainLaurel]

5. Here's the Times-Picayune article

http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2009/08/us_rep_ahn_joseph_cao_says_hes.html