“Congressman Jefferson is looking at 27-33 years under the Sentencing Guidelines. In their Memorandum, Jefferson’s attorneys point out that no Member of Congress has ever been sentenced to more than 100 months in prison! I don’t think that argument really helps him much. I think he will end up in the Guiness Book of World Records.”

So, Cao’s great political feat was defeating a Congressman who will likely go down in history as having the longest prison sentence of any member of Congress. I can see why you all are proud of him!

Forsan, I would imagine that Rep. Cao got elected with considerable black support because his black opponent in the 2008 election, William Jefferson, was in the middle of a political scandal at the time, and was in so much hot water that even the New Orleans Times-Picayune wouldn’t endorse him for re-election. He has since been convicted of corruption charges, and pledges to appeal. I imagine that Cao will have a harder time when he runs against a fully functional opponent. But, Cao at least has the distinction of being the first Republican elected from this district since 1891, despite all that black Republican support down there.

Remember, Forsan, politics is not always about ideology. When Ben Chandler was defeated for governor by Ernie Fletcher, the first Kentucky Republican governor since Louie Nunn was elected in 1967, he believed he’d won because people were voting for him. He would never listen to his advisors, who warned him that people weren’t voting for him, they were voting against the ghost of the previous Democratic governor, Paul Patton, who despite his age, managed to get caught up in a sex scandal. The next go-round, Fletcher was easily defeated by Democrat Steve Beshear and hasn’t been heard from since. Don’t get me wrong; Cao doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but politics is politics, and a win over a disabled candidate is often just that.

In the news lately is Representative Anh Cao, the only Republican to vote for the health care bill. He represents a district that is about 75% Democratic and 62% black. He’s a pro-life, former Jesuit seminarian of Vietnamese descent who is strongly anti-Communist. In what box does Caleb, with his manichean worldview, put Congressman Cao? And with a 62% black constituency, how did Cao get elected without at least some black votes?

Just for the record, Caleb, I have many black friends and acquaintances. We have an elected black member on our city council right here in little ol’ rural Utah. I helped with his campaign, designing ads and posters. My wife babysits two adorable black children every day while their mother teaches at our high school. We have a black man married to a white woman in our church congregation (and we’re Mormon even!) and nobody cares. In fact, he’s one of the more popular members (maybe that’s just because he stands out). I have two black kids in the Scout troop I help lead.

The more I learn about people (a life-long process, mind you) the more I see how superficial our differences are. The only real difference between black and white, on a case by case basis, is the amount of melanin in our skins. Local culture really plays a much bigger role. You get any group together based on a single characteristic and they automatically start assigning more and more unfounded attributes to themselves. It happens in Utah all the time. People make assumptions about the Mormons here all the time. Mormons even make many unsubstantiated assumptions about themselves. Blacks here in Utah might actually be more conservative (I don’t have numbers–don’t want to assume too much) than blacks in Kentucky. After all, the head of the Utah Republican party is black (along with the national leader, BTW).

I had a black co-worker with whom I worked right next to for 8 hours every day down in Las Vegas who was quite conservative. He was always having battles with his more liberal hispanic wife (poor fellow). I think he was even more conservative than me (if that’s even possible).

So, we all need to refrain from making sweeping assumptions. Sorry if this seems to have degenerated into an argument over who has more black friends, just wanted to point out that we in the “fly-over” country do have a bit more diversity than you Easterners might think.

And, just a little hint here, Forsan. Saying someone else has poor reading comprehension skills when you don’t agree with them is not the way to get your point across. Don’t get me wrong; all those years of law practice have made me pretty well immune to personal attacks, so it doesn’t bother me, but the attacks just look bush league.

Unlike you, I never characterized blacks (or whites) as any percentage of conservative or not conservative, however those terms are defined. Unlike you, I never claimed to speak for anyone other than myself.

Any group is going to have a wide range of opinions. But you want to put everyone in a box and put a label on it. You act like you’re the greatest friend of the black community, but you’re continually condescending by treating blacks as a single, uniform-thinking entity rather than millions of people with far more diverse thoughts than you care to acknowledge.

I always think it is wonderful that white conservatives never tire of telling us how much blacks oppose same sex marriage, as if that makes bigotry okay, but never seem to show the same degree of interest in what blacks think of civil rights, economic justice, or other public issues. No doubt an oversight.

Which brings up an interesting point. I agree that on many social issues, blacks are more conservative than white Democrats. In many respects, this would make them natural Republicans. And, in fact, as late as the 1920s, the vast majority of black registered voters in America were Republicans. Why is that no longer true? I ask, because you obviously have a far better take on black public opinion than I do.

Please don’t start telling us what 99% of gays or 99% of First Americans think.

As to your characterization of blacks as not conservative, I earlier asked you to reconcile that with the fact that the majority of blacks oppose same-sex marriage, which is supposedly the conservative position. Or how about capital punishment, where the majority of blacks favor it, again the supposedly conservative position. You then show the confusion in your argument by trying to equate party affiliation with personal philosophy. To a partisan like you, it’s the same thing. But even if you want to argue that 99% of blacks are Democrats, that’s not true.

You keep wanting to hold yourself up as the Great White Father speaking for Black America. Do you realize how condescending that makes you sound? Do you think that because some of your best friends are black, you’re entitled to speak for millions of people? Why don’t you confine your comments to what Caleb Powers believes?

But there again, I’m sure there’s a reason that I’m wrong . . .

You claim that I’m not responding to what you said, then “correct” me that you didn’t say “all blacks.” Of course, I didn’t say “all blacks”, you’re just making things up, like your bogus statistic that 99% of all blacks are not conservative.