Hats off to Congressman Cao for making the health care bill bipartisan!;)

You should the comments by the teabaggers on Cao's Facebook page. Some are even calling him a Vietcong spy.

He'll likely run as a Democrat in 2010 and beyond.

Only a complete wingnut representing LA-2 would vote against this. Cao may have to switch parties to win again...and he may well do that. Yeah, he won as a GOPer, but any GOPer running in LA-2, even against the extremely flawed Jefferson, had to be pretty darned progressive from the start. He could likely win as a GOPer because of this vote but he'd never win the primary. So Joe Cao may be the newest member of the Democratic House caucus in the very near future. And given the bravery he showed in this vote, he'd probably be able to run vitually unopposed. Have to think that he received this reassurance from folks in the Dem leadership and the WH, although, again, even a true GOPer who wasn't an insane wingnut representing LA-2 would have voted "no" on this. But a true wingnut never would have won the district in the first place. And I'm sure Cao is still ticked off at how they intimidated him into voting against the stimulus bill. (I heard they had members of the whip's staff standing next to him as he vote nay. That may work on moderate folks representing wingnut districts...but Cao doesn't represent a wingnut district.)

Stupak Amendment is shameful. Democrats betrayed women's rights tonight.

A conservative PO, a conservative bill. This guys just acting like a conservative.

Cao's election was a "shocking victory against Democratic Rep. William Jefferson"? How was that shocking? When the Democrats run a complete crook, how could it possibly be shocking that his constituents chose the other candidate?

I certainly hope we don't get to the point where Democrats will vote for such a corrupt candidate, just because he's a Democrat. And I hope that the Democratic Party learns from this and stops cutting incumbents so much slack. We are all better off losing an election than supporting corrupt politicians (let's leave that to the Republicans).

Hey Eric Kleefeld, Josh Marshall, et al - I would like to echo another commenter on a recent thread and request that TPM reject the use of the right-wing term "pro-life" in TPM-written articles. "Pro-life" is an Orwellian doublespeak red herring bullshit term propagated by the anti-abortion forces. The honest and accurate term is "anti-abortion".

dude remember when michael steele was all like "i'm the cow on the tracks" then this Cao dude was totally like "psych!" thank you representative Cao for support this legislation and making my inane punnery possible.

I watched the vote last night and this guy waited to be sure if the vote would pass before he committed. If it came down to it I'm sure he would have voted with the rest of the GOP.

Don't be so quick to dismiss Cao just because his vote came late in the process. Watch some of his townhall stuff (look it up on YouTube). He is a human being, not a GOPbot.

I know little to nothing about Rep. Cao, and therefore cannot speak as to any motive other than the one he gave us for crossing the aisle (as some suggest).

I WILL say this for him: if he is one in support of the pro-life cause, and understands that being pro-life means being pro "LIFE", then his vote in support of H.R. 3962 makes perfect sense to me. He appears to embrace the notion that the "right to life" is not limited to the unborn.

Though I may not agree with whatever he may or may not do in future, on this issue I will gladly extend him the credit he deserves. Bravo to you, Congressman Cao!

For the record, I am pro-choice. One other thing: the anti-abortion clause in the bill did not diminish the rights of women in the slightest, it merely upheld the laws already in place prohibiting the use of federal funding for abortions. It has always been thus. Certain factions of Congress wanted to turn the health care debate into yet another knock-down-drag-out over abortion and it had no place in this legislation. That is a seperate issue and another fight entirely. Losing votes for health care reform over this issue would have been beyond stupid. Pelosi did what she had to do.