Talking with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Louisiana Republican Anh Cao said, "don't tell the Republicans, but I might be a closet Democrat." He's pretty deep in the closet, it seems. The Washington Post's vote database shows that he votes with his party 88.25 percent of the time. But Cao, an unlikely Republican from the most Democratic district in the country, is feeling heat back home, so that number might begin to tick downward.Which reminds me to link to Rick Hertzberg's capsule history of Charles Krauthammer's politics. Krauthammer's path is interesting: As his foreign policy opinions increasingly sync with those of the right, his economic and social policy increasingly aligns. The New Deal liberal with an affection for invasion becomes a tax cutting conservative with an affection for invasion. It's not a particularly surprising trajectory: Peer influences are powerful. If you decide that Bill Kristol is a brave truth-teller on foreign policy you'll naturally give his domestic ideas greater consideration. If you're tired of being knocked around by Paul Krugman you're less likely to credit the precision of his economic analysis. Which is all to say that if Anh Cao does switch parties, the mixture of district incentives and peer impacts will, I predict, not leave him a mere Democrat. He'll become a liberal. THE CLOSETED DEMOCRAT.
Talking with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Louisiana Republican Anh Cao said, "don't tell the Republicans, but I might be a closet Democrat." He's pretty deep in the closet, it seems. The Washington Post's vote database shows that he votes with his party 88.25 percent of the time. But Cao, an unlikely Republican from the most Democratic district in the country, is feeling heat back home, so that number might begin to tick downward.Which reminds me to link to Rick Hertzberg's capsule history of Charles Krauthammer's politics. Krauthammer's path is interesting: As his foreign policy opinions increasingly sync with those of the right, his economic and social policy increasingly aligns. The New Deal liberal with an affection for invasion becomes a tax cutting conservative with an affection for invasion. It's not a particularly surprising trajectory: Peer influences are powerful. If you decide that Bill Kristol is a brave truth-teller on foreign policy you'll naturally give his domestic ideas greater consideration. If you're tired of being knocked around by Paul Krugman you're less likely to credit the precision of his economic analysis. Which is all to say that if Anh Cao does switch parties, the mixture of district incentives and peer impacts will, I predict, not leave him a mere Democrat. He'll become a liberal. 
