We've survived crazy politicians before [Louisiana ... where else?!]

The Times Picayune [New Orleans, LA] / nola.com ^ | January 18, 2006 | James Gill

[caryatid]

Louisiana survived Earl Long's trip to the nuthouse, so maybe New Orleans can survive Mayor Ray Nagin's apparent descent into lunacy.

But Long managed to put his eccentric episodes behind him and remained a political force, going on to win a congressional election just before he died.

Nagin may not be so lucky. It will be hard to recover from his Martin Luther King Day tirade, because it was not just insane. It was stupid. The mayoralty is there for any credible candidate who wants it, because Nagin just threw away the white vote that got him into office in the first place.

The sooner we reschedule the election, the better, because we aren't going to accelerate the Katrina recovery so long as the whole world knows the man in charge down here not only chats with King but is also a confidant of the Almighty.
[...]

[caryatid]

More from the article:

Nagin agrees with God. He maintains that this must be a "chocolate" city, and he doesn't care what "people are saying Uptown or wherever."

That hasn't gone down too well Uptown or wherever else white voters warmed to Nagin in his first campaign. Nagin did have a reasonable point to make -- that the city cannot flourish without an adequate work force and we all need black folks to return -- but he made it sound like racist-rabble rousing and a slur on white residents.

Mayor Nagin, who changed his voter registration from Republican to Democrat to run for Mayor, was not overwhelmingly supported by the black community to begin with. Now, with another in a lengthening series of unreasoned, seemingly out-of-control tirades ... he may well have alienated the voters ["...Uptown or wherever"] who did elect him.

Chris Granger / Times-Picayune
Mayor Ray Nagin talks about the comments
he made earlier this week about a 'chocolate' New Orleans.

[caryatid]

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[kAcknor]

Nagin, who changed his voter registration from Republican to Democrat to run for Mayor

I didn't know that! Thank goodness he did. Imagine the crap we would have taken from the press were this bonehead a Republican!

[pleikumud]

It isn't just Louisiana, or Huey Long, or Ray Nagin. Today it's the entire Democrat Party. Chappy Kennedy is judging judges, and telling us Bush is a liar, Murtha is telling our soldiers they can't win, Kerry wants Bush impeached for preventing another 9/11 in the U.S., Hillary Klinton tells us that Congress is a civil war plantation, Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said she would like to assault (punch) President Bush, Howard Dean rants like a total lunatic every day. The Democrats have lost their sanity, and they will lose more seats in Congress in 2006. They're going to change the party name to Jackass Party.

[alnick]

Imagine the crap we would have taken from the press were this bonehead a Republican!

Wouldn't matter. Nagin would never have been elected mayor of New Orleans as a Republican.

[OldFriend]

They call that surviving!

[alnick]

No, we wouldn't, because as I said in my last post, if he were a Republican, he would never have become mayor of New Orleans in the first place.

[Free Dominoes]

He said he wants to make New Orleans black (no doubt so he can win re-election easier) and stop LA from becoming a real "red state". What exactly is nuts about this?

[Itzlzha]

That hasn't gone down too well Uptown or wherever else white voters warmed to Nagin in his first campaign. Nagin did have a reasonable point to make -- that the city cannot flourish without an adequate work force and we all need black folks to return -- but he made it sound like racist-rabble rousing and a slur on white residents.

Um...am I the ONLY one that see a problem with that sentence?

After Hillary's "Plantation" comment, just WHO says that the Black folk need to return to be an "adequate work force"? That's the reason that NOLA has to be a "chocolate city" again?!?!

Trent Lott/Robert "KKK" Byrd...White Courtesy Phone...Trent Lott/Robert "KKK" Byrd, White Courtesy Phone!

[caryatid]

Um...am I the ONLY one that see a problem with that sentence?

No, you are not the only one who sees a problem with that sentence. I did not overlook it, I just chose not to address it. The last time I pointed out on FRee Republic that there is, and has always been, a flourishing black middle class comprised of doctors, lawyers and other professionals ... who owned their own homes, educated their children [largely in parochial or private schools] ... who are entrepreneurial, civic minded and support the arts ... I was actually accused of being racist because I distinguished those good folks from the blacks of the dependent class. I chose not to go there again, this time ... but, now that you seem to want more of a response from me, I can only say that I assume that they are not wanted in New Orleans now any more than white folks are wanted there by Hizzoner.

[Holden Magroin]

Hopefully Nagin will still be around when Mary Landrieu is up for re-election. The Republican candidate can hang Nagin around her neck real good.