More congratulations!

Asian Americans finally made some good political news in the past week, after a long hiatus. Latino leaders have been pushing President Elect Obama to appoint more Latino Cabinet members, but it was Asian Americans - who generally backed Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primaries - who first reached the two Cabinet members mark. No doubt with intentional irony, this past Sunday - Pearl Harbor Day - Obama tapped Japanese American Eric Shinseki (pictured above) (like Obama, a Hawaii native) as Veterans Affairs secretary designate. A former Army chief of staff who stood up to General Rumsfeld about Iraq war planning, Shinseki's pick may soothe a little Obama's former left-wing supporters who don't like his national security picks (too many moderates who didn't oppose the war) and economic policy picks (too many devotees of Richard Rubin, who at Treasury during the Clinton Administration and then at Citigroup helped usher in financial market deregulation and the mortgage crisis - or, worse yet, Reaganomics' Paul Volcker).

Then later in the week Obama's second Asian American Cabinet member designate was Steve Chu (pictured below), a scientist and alternative energy afficianado (who has directed one of the Energy Department's largest labs). The selection of a bonafide scientist as Engergy secretary designate adds to the academic pedigree of Obama's picks (also to his White House staff) and may also generate support from the scientific community (to whom Obama may pay more attention, especially on issues such as climate change and stem cell research).


An additional Asian American also wound up in Congress, this past weekend, when a Louisiana special election propelled Vietnamese American Anh "Joseph" Cao (pictured below) into the U.S. House of Representatives, over incumbent and indicted Democrat Willie Jefferson, part of a small Southern Republican tide, also with the victory of Georgia's incumbent U.S. Senator Saxbee Chambliss. Cao seemed almost apolitical, but, a Catholic, opposes abortion. He joins fellow Asian American Bobby Jindal, as part of Louisiana's Asian American political elite. The Cao-Jefferson race settled all but the last of the contested Congressional races. Post-Election Day ground zero for how much the Democrats would control the House and Senate was in many familiar places to us. In Virginia, there was a recount which sustained Democratic challenger Tom Perriello over the incumbent Republican, in a district in which my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew live. Last weekend on Sunday morning there was still no winner in a contested race in western Central Ohio, where former New Left activist Mary Jo Kilroy (a former Columbus Board of Education member then a Franklin County Commissioner who sought to represent also Union County, where we stayed a week ago tonight) battled a Republican. They both sought to succeed Deborah Pryce, whom Kilroy had almost knocked off two years ago, and whose 1994 election as a pro-abortion rights Republican against both a Democrat and an anti-abortion independent, definitely made the news in my dissertation. With Perriello, Kilroy, Cao, and Chambliss all winning, the one remaining seat up for grabs is the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota (where we lived eight years ago). There, former "Saturday Night Live" comedian (and former "Air America" radio commentator) Al Franken continues to gain ground, in the recount, versus incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, a former St. Paul mayor and former Democrat.

Of course, none of this was news by late this past week, when the apparent would-be Senate seat-selling by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (pictured below) captured attention. Blagojevich was a first-year Illinois governor the year I lived and taught in Macomb, IL, and he helped Western Illinois lande the money for expansion of their Quad Cities campus. Even if he was something of a lone wolf trying to enrich himself personally, he's certainly damaged the Democratic "change that you can believe in" "brand." If this hasn't rubbed off on the president elect directly (and assuming he wasn't involved and didn't know about it), a would-be ally - Jesse Jackson, Jr. - is out as a potential U.S. senator, all the news about this detracts from Obama's message (even if it's more dramatic then - say - Dr. Chu's selection - and harkens back to the Governor Palin saga or the long Hilary vs. Obama saga), and it may well be that people who are somewhat close to Obama - like state Senator Emil Jones - should (and perhaps did?) have known something about this attempted seat-selling. Shame on the governor and shame on any Democrats who didn't turn him in. It's remotely possible that the way that the Democrats will have to force the Senate seat decision out of Blagojevich's hands is by setting up a special election - which could result in this environment in a Republican victory, thereby whittling the Democratic-independent majority in the Senate - even with ultimately a Democratic victory in MN - down from 58 or 59 to 57 or 58.

-- Perry