During the holiday season, we are reminded to remember the less fortunate among us. In that spirit of empathy, TWI has compiled a list of the ten least successful politicians of 2009 — those most in need of our thoughts.

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Political handicappers have not written Cao off entirely, but any serious analysis of the 2010 election suggests that he’ll lose. Turnout in the December 2008 runoff that elected him was only 66,846, down from almost 164,000 the month before. And Cao only beat Jefferson, who raised virtually no money and offered only the least convincing spin on his bribery indictments, by a three-point margin. The Democrats’ biggest problem here will be their own internal strife and fumbling, as it was in 2006 — when a credible candidate against Jefferson, State Rep. Karen Carter, was opposed by local power brokers who wanted a shot at Jefferson’s seat themselves, and opposed even more strongly by Harry Lee, a now-dead local sheriff angry over comments Carter made in Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina. The video of that press conference is well worth watching, especially when Lee snaps at Carter for “running her fat mouth” about Jefferson Parish.

The takeaway from all of this is that a Democratic Party that gets a credible candidate to the general election in 2010, with turnout from the U.S. Senate race against Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), will almost certainly take back this district that voted three-to-one for President Obama. And that takes the GOP a little bit backwards in its quest to gain control of the House.

Former Democratic Congressman William Jefferson was found guilty of 11 of 16 corruption charges today by a federal jury. [...]

Jefferson was charged with soliciting bribes and other crimes for a series of schemes in which he helped American businesses broker deals in West African in exchange for payments or financial considerations to companies controlled by members of his family, including his brother Mose, his wife, Andrea, their five daughters and a son-in-law.

Jefferson, who represented the New Orleans-based 2nd Congressional District for nine terms, will now face sentencing by Judge T.S. Ellis III, who earlier meted out stiff sentences for lesser figures in the case. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Jefferson faced 235 years in prison if convicted on all counts, and will still face substantial prison time.

The verdict comes four years after the Aug. 3, 2005 raids of Jefferson’s homes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., in which the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in the freezer of his D.C. home, money the government said Jefferson was going to deliver as a bribe to Atiku Abubakar, then vice president of Nigeria, to gain his help with a telecommunications deal in Nigeria being pursued by Lori Mody, a Northern Virginia businesswoman.

Forty-six months after federal agents found $90,000 of aluminum-wrapped cash in his freezer, and thirty-seven months after FBI agents raided his office on Capitol Hill, former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) begins trial today in Virginia on charges that he sought cash in exchange for promoting U.S. business deals in Africa.

There’s plenty of intrigue here, as even the most casual observers of this saga have been curious how Jefferson intends to explain the choice of safety-deposit box that earned him the nickname “Cold Cash.” Meanwhile, The Hill yesterday briefly summarized the line of defense his lawyers plan to peddle:

The attorneys argue that the $100,000 Jefferson allegedly received in exchange for promoting donors’ business interests in the U.S. and Africa, including $90,000 found in his freezer, was not illegal because his dealings were related to private business and were not “official” in nature.

Good luck with that.

You know Jefferson. He’s the guy discovered to have $90,000 in cash stored in his freezer — wrapped in aluminum foil no less. In June 2007, he was indicted on 16 charges of bribery and influence peddling, although he has yet to be tried. In the meantime, it’s been much tougher for Democrats to condemn scandal-ridden Republicans like Rep. Rick Renzi and Sen. Ted Stevens, knowing that Jefferson is in a similar boat.

Democrats lost that baggage over the weekend, when Republican Anh Cao shocked New Orleans by defeating the nine-term Jefferson, thus becoming the first Vietnamese American to hold a seat in Congress.

That left Democrats generally free of any high-profile embarrassments in their ranks — for three whole days.

Now they have Blagojevich instead. Go figure.