Jefferson's Career Steeped In Historic Moments
by Jonathan Tilove - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. William Jefferson made history coming and going. When he was elected to Congress in 1990, replacing Lindy Boggs, he was the first African-American since Reconstruction to represent Louisiana in Washington, and one of the first to represent any Southern state.

With Jefferson's defeat Saturday, Louisiana will become the only Deep South state -- and one of three states of the Old Confederacy -- without a black member in Congress. The other two states of the Confederacy, Tennessee and Arkansas, have much smaller black populations than Louisiana, which has the largest percentage of black residents of any state but Mississippi.

For Jefferson and Cao, the confluence of events included Hurricane Gustav, which knocked election day into the political doldrums of December and the afterglow of the historic election of Barack Obama as president. Obama's candidacy drew an enormous black turnout but also may have sated many African-Americans' political appetites for the season.

"I think they built up a great head of steam for the Obama race, and, frankly, I think many people really thought they had already done their job," said Jefferson, who encountered many voters who thought his race was decided when he won the Democratic primary Nov. 4.