Posted on 03/03/2006 7:23:32 PM PST by Libloather
Race for New Orleans mayor will be roadshow
By JESSICA BUJOL
Associated Press Writer
March 03. 2006 6:56PM
Mayor Ray Nagin and 23 challengers have entered the April primary for the city's top elected job, hitting a campaign trail political observers say will stretch from Atlanta to Houston.
Qualifying for the race ended Friday afternoon. Besides Nagin, those who have qualified include former minor-league baseball team owner Rob Couhig; minister and civil rights activist Marie Galatas; financial planner Carlos Hornbrook; former state Rep. Leo Watermeier; Audubon Institute chief executive Ron Forman; Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu; former city councilwoman Peggy Wilson and the Rev. Tom Watson, a politically influential black minister.
New Orleans Criminal Court Clerk Kimberly Williamson Butler was a surprise entry Friday. Butler, once Nagin's chief administrative officer, had been dodging authorities after a warrant was issued for her arrest.
She was ordered last week to turn over control of her office and accept help reorganizing it after Hurricane Katrina, but she has refused. After she appeared in court Friday, the warrant was vacated and a contempt hearing scheduled for Monday.
The upcoming campaign includes so many variables it's hard to predict what might happen, New Orleans political analyst and pollster Silas Lee said. But two things are certain: Candidates will have to spend more money and more time on the road than in a typical race.
"If they want to ensure some level of a victory to make it to the runoff, it will have to be a multistate campaign," Lee said of the April 22 race.
Spending for a typical New Orleans mayoral race would hover around $1 million, Lee said. In this race, though, candidates will have to factor in the cost of advertising in bigger markets and the price of organizing campaign offices out of state.
"That exponentially increases the budget for this mayor's race," Lee said.
The added expense creates a difficult predicament for candidates, said Ed Renwick, the director of Loyola University's Institute of Politics.
"It's expensive enough to advertise in metropolitan New Orleans, but if you have to add in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houston and Atlanta, you might as well run for president," Renwick said. "I don't know what the answer is. And, of course, for direct mailing, they don't have their addresses."
Getting the word out in the far-flung areas may be easier for some than others.
Incumbent Nagin is in the news regularly and has already held a series of town hall meetings with displaced residents in cities like Houston, Atlanta and Memphis, but he sometimes faced angry citizens in those gatherings.
Nagin said he'd be in Houston again this weekend.
"It's a nationwide campaign," he said. "We're going to be all over the place."
Landrieu has been well known in New Orleans for years as a member of a politically popular family, a state legislator and lieutenant governor, his current job. But he still plans to travel.
"It's peculiar. It's twisting a lot of people's heads because we don't know where all the voters are," he said. "It will be a taxing, short campaign."
Wilson, who's won a citywide election before as an at-large council member, said she's been relying on neighborhood meetings in New Orleans to spread the word of her candidacy. She said she considered taking her campaign to places like Houston and Atlanta but couldn't figure out how to begin reaching scattered evacuees.
"The problem is, when you get there, how do you get to the people? Even if you know where they are, they don't just come out to meet you," she said.
Watson has already committed to traveling - and traveling often.
"We will knock on doors, on trailers, on mobile homes. We will be on radio and TV and in print so our voters will understand our message," he told supporters recently. "So, get ready to pack your bags because we will be traveling the country."
New Orleans had a population of about 465,000, roughly 70 percent black, before Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29. Various estimates now put the mostly-white population at well under 200,000, with many blacks still displaced because of the storm.
At least four candidates have links on their Web sites to absentee voting information, and the state legislature recently passed a measure allowing displaced New Orleanians to vote in 10 of Louisiana's parishes.
But turnout remains perhaps the biggest question mark in the race, Renwick said.
"We don't know who the people are who are going to vote and we don't know where they are," he said.
Nagin needs to hurry up and pack his stuff.
The sooner his sorry @$$ is thrown out of office, the better.
I was hoping the ISM lady - Dyan French - would be running.
Is there any way possible to de-annex Louisana from the Union?
On second thought....they would immediately qualify for "Third-World status and get even deeper into the pocket of REAK American taxpayers......
Never mind.
take out the levee's, let it be. no more money...
Not Sitting Pretty
The recently released Ed Renwick poll of New Orleans voters, which showed Mayor Ray Nagin in trouble politically, contained some bad news for several City Council members as well. In most council districts, a relatively high percentage of voters expressed a desire to "consider someone else" in the April 22 primary. Renwick, who directs the Loyola Institute of Politics, noted that "these were small numbers and are subject to a large error factor." That said, the results are still interesting. In District A, 25 percent wanted to re-elect incumbent Jay Batt, but 41 percent wanted to consider someone else. In District B, 19 percent wanted to re-elect Renee Gill Pratt, but 36 percent wanted to consider someone else. In District D, 28 percent wanted to re-elect new Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge Morrell, but 38 percent wanted to consider someone else. In District E, 56 percent of the "very small number of interviews conducted" wanted to re-elect Cynthia Willard Lewis, while 19 percent wanted to consider someone else. District C incumbent Jackie Clarkson is seeking one of the council's two at-large seats. In her district, 43 percent wanted to vote for her for in the at-large race, while 35 percent opposed her. Qualifying for all council races is this Wednesday through Friday. --
DuBos
Vitter Clears the Air
After Gov. Kathleen Blanco suggested that Louisiana's junior senator actively lobbied against her plan for a housing trust, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie, fired off a letter to the governor offering a rebuttal. "This sort of partisan blame-throwing helps no one, least of all those still suffering in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," Vitter wrote. The senator says he told a group of lawmakers the state plan itself wasn't "terribly important, but that the substance of the plan itself was." Most importantly, Vitter told the governor that details for New Orleans' "footprint" need to be determined soon, thus defining where rebuilding will and will not take place. Although Vitter did not hesitate to cross swords with Blanco, he wrote in a letter to supporters last week that he won't be running against her in next year's gubernatorial election. Vitter's decision not to run for governor appears to pave the way for Congressman Bobby Jindal to be the leading -- if not the only -- Republican in that race. -- Alford
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/current/news_scut.php
So long as the transplanted NOLA residents aren't voting in the Texas primaries as well.
So long as the transplanted NOLA residents aren't voting in the Texas primaries as well.
Well, we all know what polls mean. Thanks for the post, L.
The results of a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of New Orleans voters -- at least, those living here now -- released this week offered good and bad news for Mayor Ray Nagin and his chief challengers in the April 22 mayoral election.
A small majority of those polled, 54 percent, said they approved of the job Nagin did in responding to Hurricane Katrina, which ranked the mayor slightly ahead of the New Orleans Police Department, at 50 percent, but well ahead of Gov. Kathleen Blanco, at 33 percent, President Bush, at 23 percent, and the much-derided FEMA, at 22 percent.
But 43 percent said they disapproved of Nagin's Katrina performance, virtually the same as the 44 percent who said they will "definitely" not vote to re-elect him.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-13/1141286233172740.xml
Who are these idiots...I mean people they poll?
I'm not sure - but it could indicate that at least the phone system is working down there - eh?
. . . how do you get to the people?"
Follow the 2k FEMA cards to the tatoo parlors and liquor stores.
If the phones are working, then you can call in for your unemployemnt check. If you can do that, you can take a poll and you probably vote yes for Nagin.
The short of it: The unemployed say 'yes' to Nagin.
"Is there any way possible to de-annex Louisiana from the Union?"
New Orleans had a lousy underclass, but Louisiana is a very cool state, with the friendliest people in the union, and this comes from a Texan.
You are right.
Hopefully the racists and other fools that placed Nagin into office will have no ability to vote on April 22.
Thanks, it is rare I read this forum and hear anything good about my state.
I spent much time in Louisiana as a hitchhiker or a drifter and saw people in their true state, and they are extraordinary. If you are a good guy and spend time in the backwoods areas and small towns, its like being welcomed into a family. Many times I've had cafe owners pushing food on me because, once they know you are sincerely interested in the food, business and profit concerns go out the window. If you read a book by Peter Jenkins "Walk Across America" (yes he walked), you should be very pleased with how he describes Louisiana.
Refugees are free to register and vote from their current addresses, and are free to re-register if they move back to NO, just like every other citizen of the US. That is if they haven't been arrested & convicted where they are. They seem to have brought a lot of crime with them.
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