Oh God, what were they thinking?
Perhaps someone here knows more about the situation. Were there factors beyond the 800-ton elephant in the room being race? Frankly, I'm not sure why those still outside the city would vote for Nagin, anyone know why they might have?
New York Times
Voters Re-elect Nagin as Mayor in New Orleans
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: May 21, 2006
NEW ORLEANS, May 20 C. Ray Nagin, the unpredictable mayor who charted a sometimes erratic course for his city through Hurricane Katrina and after, won a narrow re-election victory here Saturday.
Mr. Nagin fended off a strong challenge from Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, the scion of one of Louisiana's leading political families, in a vote that see-sawed all night. With all of the city's 442 precincts reporting, Mr. Nagin had 52 percent of the vote, while Mr. Landrieu received 48 percent.
Mr. Nagin, an African-American, won about 20 percent of the votes of whites, as well as over 80 percent of the black vote, according to one elections analyst, Greg Rigamer, who appeared on a local television station.
"It's time for this community to start the healing process," Mr. Nagin said, adding that he intended to continue working with his opponent.
Mr. Landrieu, who is white, called on residents in his concession speech to unite behind the mayor in rebuilding a city that has barely begun to recover from the flooding.
"I want to congratulate Mayor Nagin," Mr. Landrieu said. "This was a hard fought campaign. The people of New Orleans conducted themselves in a dignified and thoughtful way."
Mr. Nagin raised far less money than Mr. Landrieu did and had little of the business and establishment support that helped him take office four years ago. But he appeared to benefit from votes cast by those displaced from the city by the hurricane, who were encouraged to vote with absentee ballots and at satellite polling stations set up around Louisiana.
Coming amid the giant post-hurricane rebuilding effort still to be undertaken, this election was one more demand on the attention of residents already facing a plethora of private and public challenges.
Mr. Nagin came out on top in an April primary, but opponents collectively received a majority of the votes.
For both candidates in the runoff, it came down to a complicated electoral balancing act. Mr. Landrieu sought to reassure conservative whites that he was not too liberal, despite his politically prominent family's reputation. And Mr. Nagin strove to get most of the votes of blacks still in the majority here, despite the hurricane-induced diaspora while still gaining the share of white votes critical to his chances.
With Mr. Landrieu and Mr. Nagin taking the same muted position on the central issue facing this city both refused to rule out rebuilding in any area, no matter how badly damaged by flooding the race was about who was most competent to lead New Orleans out of its current predicament.
Mostly unspoken was the larger reality: that the federal money destined for the city, as much as $10 billion that would perhaps arrive by late summer, would have far more influence on its recovery than the actions of any mayor.
Mr. Landrieu accused Mr. Nagin of botching the recovery. He said he had failed to put into place a rebuilding plan and to get ruined cars, garbage and debris off the streets.
"This race only comes down to leadership, competence and performance," he said Thursday. "The rebuild's got to start sometime, and it's not happening."
Mr. Landrieu repeatedly suggested that the city's finances were in disorder and that New Orleans might need to declare bankruptcy, as some groups here have suggested.
Then, earlier this week, Mr. Nagin announced a $150 million loan from a consortium of banks, two French and two American, to keep the city going through next year a deal that turned out not to have been fully completed.
Throughout the race, Mr. Nagin used his opponent's connections against him, suggesting that the election of Mr. Landrieu would perpetuate a family "dynasty." He characterized Mr. Landrieu's record as sketchy, after 16 years in the legislature and two as lieutenant governor.
"I think Mitch is a good guy," Mr. Nagin said Friday. "I love him to death. But he's not really an implementer."
The choice was not clear-cut, though, and residents often expressed confusion over it in the days leading up to the election. Above all, the election sometimes seemed merely a distraction in the context of a city still facing questions over its survival.
Still, as the election neared and increasingly began to seem like a referendum on the city's future, attention began to focus on it.
Saturday was a clear, hot day, and in the areas that did not flood during the hurricane, volunteers stood at street corners waving signs, while flatbed trucks and even a fire engine passed by packed with cheering supporters. In the flooded areas, piles of debris stood outside empty houses still showing last August's water line, and there was little life. The medians of the broad, silent boulevards in Mid-City were crowded with signs for the candidates.
Among voters on Saturday there was unease, dissatisfaction over the recovery, and among those who had been displaced a longing to return. Still, African-Americans voters for the most part said they were standing by Mr. Nagin.
"The city is starting to show a little progress, but only a little progress," said Idoshia Gordon, reciting the list of family members cousins, siblings, aunts who had lost houses to the hurricane.
"The mayor still hasn't said what parts of the city he's going to allow you to rebuild in," Ms. Gordon said, giving voice to a source of widespread though inaccurate confusion, as Mr. Nagin has allowed rebuilding in all areas. "I would love to come home, but there's nowhere to come home to."
Despite these reservations, she said was going to vote for Mr. Nagin. "I want to see him carry it through," she said. "I want him to finish it out."
Many whites were openly angry at the mayor.
"We've got to change the situation," said David Castillo after voting at Jesuit High School in Mid-City, where construction workers were busy on a building that was badly flooded. "It's a bad situation."
Mr. Castillo, a retired grain-elevator worker, said: "We've got to get somebody in there who can do something. Lots of things have to be changed. The city is like a dump."
Robyin Dansereau, who lives nearby, said, "There's very little progress."
Others were more forgiving of the mayor, who voted at the school.
"You did everything you could, my darlin', " said Theresa Graffin, embracing Mr. Nagin, who buttonholed as many people as he could and appeared cool and collected.
Less than half of the city's population of 455,000 has returned, by most counts.
Elections officials consolidated 254 polling places into 76, including several so-called megaprecincts, where signs indicating lost polling sites, over the voting booths, were poignant reminders of what the city has lost. Besides allowing voters to cast ballots early at the sites set up around Louisiana, officials mailed nearly 20,000 ballots to voters scattered around the country, many of them in Texas.
In a park in front of City Hall, a noon rally of several hundred displaced voters bused in from Houston drew both candidates, but they were permitted only one-minute speeches. Organizers from the Industrial Areas Foundation, meanwhile, addressed the crowd at length with chants of "Do you miss your city?" and "Are you ready to come back?"
The crowd, largely African-American, let out a cheer when Mr. Nagin arrived. Mr. Landrieu appeared taken aback by the tone of what had been billed as a neutral rally.
Nonetheless, he and the mayor embraced when they saw each other. At a televised debate this week, Mr. Nagin was stumped when asked to name an area on which he and Mr. Landrieu disagreed.
Perhaps someone here knows more about the situation. Were there factors beyond the 800-ton elephant in the room being race? Frankly, I'm not sure why those still outside the city would vote for Nagin, anyone know why they might have?
