We had a big turnout last night for the showing of C.L. Bryant’s documentary Runaway Slave to open the @large conference, and we’ve got a revved-up crowd  of attendees.

Today’s festivities get started momentarily with Star Parker kicking things off, then we’re going to go into some terrific workshop presentations. Deneen Borelli will be speaking this evening to close out what should be a great day.

But if you don’t catch anything else in today’s events, be here for lunch.

We’re going to have an event of major significance in Louisiana politics take place. And one that will be particularly delicious to folks who were offended by Karen Carter Peterson’s indefensible statement that opponents of Obamacare were motivated by racism.

The state GOP demanded Peterson resign as chair of the Louisiana Democrat Party over the affair yesterday. She offered a rather impolite response…

“I think we should judge a policy by its content, not the person proposing it. To be clear, I didn’t call any person ‘racist.’ Rather, I was simply relaying the truth about conversations I’ve had with my colleagues and the factors they considered on the expansion of Medicaid. While others are using this as an opportunity to take my comments out of context in order to distract from the true issue, I think it’s critical that we focus on the substance of the policy because it’s the right thing to do for Louisiana.”

Which was crap, and a lie. Karen Carter Peterson hardly talks to anyone who disagrees with her politically; she certainly didn’t talk to anyone who told her they were opposed to the Medicaid expansion because the president is black.

In the past, disgraceful statements like this didn’t present much of a problem for the Democrats who make them. There are almost never any consequences for such assaults on public decency.

Well, maybe today we can show just a small, if indirect, consequence. Stay tuned.