The interesting thing about Nagin is that he won his first election as mayor by having the support of the business community, white conservative voters as well as middle class blacks. His opponent had support of the black activists as well as the working class and underclass blacks.
In his second election Nagin won by capturing the black vote almost in its entirety and conservative white voters.
As for the 2010 New Orleans mayoral race, the best candidate with a chance of winning would be Arnie Fielkow who is currently on the City Council.
Fielkow will build a winning strategy much like Nagin did in his first election. However, Fielkow will have to fight Mitch Landrieu for the votes white liberals.
BTW- I was in New Orleans the day before Katrina and the people who did not evacuate did no on their own accord and not because there were no school busses to help with an evacuation.
I remember Nagins original race dynamics.
What is Fielkow like? Sounds Jewish. (Not like that would make me trust him automatically even as a jew since most political Jews are liberal nuts)