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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.
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