Posted on 03/05/2006 9:52:18 PM PST by indcons
In a sign of the times for his storm-stricken city, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin campaigned for re-election on Saturday -- in Houston.
Nagin is one of 23 candidates in one of the more unusual mayoral elections in U.S. history because most of the voters now live in other cities.
Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans on August 29, scattered almost all the nearly half-million residents of the Louisiana city across the nation and only an estimated 190,000 have returned. The storm killed about 1,300 people and destroyed some 300,000 homes on the Gulf Coast.
Houston, 350 miles to the west, has 150,000 evacuees, or almost as many New Orleanians as New Orleans.
So it was that Nagin, a Democrat who was elected mayor in 2002, was in Houston seeking votes for the April 22 ballot.
"It‘s a local election that is on a national stage, which is very unusual. Nobody‘s ever had to go through this," he told reporters.
In a speech organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People civil rights group, Nagin discussed the recovery of New Orleans and explained the complicated absentee voting procedures for those who have not returned to the city.
Nagin, who sparked controversy recently by saying New Orleans would become a "chocolate city" again, told the mostly black audience of about 50 people that the election could bring a sea change to New Orleans politics, which has been dominated by blacks for more than two decades.
"There are 23 candidates running for mayor. Very few of them look like us," he said. "There‘s a potential to be a major change in the political structure in New Orleans."
A recent poll showed Nagin, who is black, trailing Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, a member of one of Louisiana‘s most prominent white political families and a New Orleans mayoral candidate, by 35 percent to 25 percent.
Political experts say Nagin‘s re-election chances may hinge on his ability to mobilize the black evacuee vote because many of those who have returned to New Orleans are whites who lived in the French Quarter and Uptown sections largely untouched by Katrina.
Before Katrina, New Orleans‘ population was about 70 percent black, but the storm hit traditionally black neighborhoods hard.
Nagin, as the figure who led the city through the tumult of Katrina, has become a lightning rod for public opinion on the government‘s bungled response to the disaster and black support for him is not guaranteed.
Several in the crowd, almost all of them evacuees, spoke up to criticize him, while others paid him tribute.
One man broke into tears as he said Nagin waited too long to order a mandatory evacuation of the city when Katrina was moving in from the Gulf of Mexico.
"The mandatory was too late. It was too late, Mayor Nagin. Two days to evacuate 500,000 people, including Alabama and Mississippi, you can‘t do it," he said.
Another man told Nagin he campaigned for him in 2002 and would do so again.
"Everything that happened was not your fault," he said.
"Thank you, brother," Nagin replied.
*snickers....busts out laughing...*
This guy is such a TURKEY. :)
Hmmm... a little presumptuous to have Nagin riding a white horse right after a virtual Armagedden swung through New Orleans, isn't it?
Agreed...I think we should create a picture with the pancake on Gen. Nagin's head (like the "bunny with a pancake" pics) :)
The Photoshop possibilities with these pictures are endless.
No kidding. If New Orleans wasn't corrupt before, how is it going to be if they allow any old "evacuee" from anywhere across the globe vote in this election?
The "general" is getting ready for his campaign. I don't think he cares much about basic human decencies.
Been there done that, got beltway snipers!
"Who can take a sunrise...sprinkle it with dew...cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two?...The Candy Man...the Candy Man can...."
LMAO...very appropriate for this thread. Laughing loud as I post this message.
PLease someone tell me who this geeks PR people are?
Exactly right - they were handing out absentee ballots all over everywhere - going door-to-door in the apartment complexes and giving out handfuls to each person. I promise there will be more "absentee voters" than there are live people in NOLA now!
And he is STILL here in Houston - been here for 3-4 days and hasn't left yet. Every time he opens his mouth, it's to say how disappointed he was in Prez Bush for "not responding" to his city's needs! He always tries to put in one "good word" in between all the bashing, so the average person thinks he said something good--but he didn't!
His opponents should be campaining in New Orleans, going door to door with a shovel and/or hammer in their hands, cleaning up the place. These people Nagin is talking to are Houstonians now.
It's always going to be someone else's fault: Bush, FEMA, the state government - wherever this loser thinks he can make it stick.
The fact that he has to go to Houston to campaign speaks volumes. Another city in another state had to step in and do what he should have had plans to do all along.
He has lost his voting base. He's desperate now to try and recover that, but the evacuees have seen how a real city is supposed to run and they don't want to go back to his horribly mismanaged, corrupt hellhole.
Now there's a Chocolate City for ya - Dallas! Ha!
Having sat at attention all evening tonight (and last night until the wee hours), expecting at any moment to be caught in the crossfire in an evacuee domestic dispute, I've just about had it with his constituents. Yelling, screaming, doors slamming, cursing, threats of bodily damage, car tires squealing, radio bass reverberating through my walls, babies crying who never, ever stop -- it goes on and on, every weekend.
At least it used to be almost every weeknight, too. I guess some one of them got a job. Or maybe one of the men goes to NOLA all week to clean up. Yeah, I'm sure that's it.
OK with me if they don't vote elsewhere as well. It will keep the corruption concentrated.
I wondered whether the Dems had plans to use flexible registration of ex-New Orleanians as a mobile voting force, to be deployed wherever needed in a Presidential election.
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