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Audacity of Truth
Whiner-in-Chief:
"[W]hether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is "whining." And nothing [...] does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."
- John Nichols, Nation Magazine - 10/12/09
Ray Nagin wins again in New Orleans mayoral election (w/ news on Rep. Jefferson scandal)
(Monday AM Note: Please see my new post up about Rep. William Jefferson’s woes here)
—-
I’d like to say this is surprising, but it’s not in light of the racial politicking he utilized as a campaign tactic. Via AP:
NEW ORLEANS – Voters re-elected Mayor Ray Nagin, whose blunt style endeared him to some but outraged others after Hurricane Katrina, giving him four more years to oversee one of the largest rebuilding projects in U.S. history.
“This is a great day for the city of New Orleans. This election is over, and it’s time for this community to start the healing process,” Nagin said Saturday in a joyful victory speech.
“It’s time for us to stop the bickering,” he said. “It’s time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It’s time for us to be one New Orleans.”
Nagin won with 52.3 percent, or 59,460 votes, to Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu’s 47.7 percent, or 54,131 votes. While the vote was split largely along racial lines, Nagin got enough of a crossover in predominantly white districts to make the difference. He also won a slim majority of absentee and fax votes cast by evacuees scattered across the country.
Greg Rigamer, a political and demographic analyst, said on Sunday that about one-fifth of black and white voters crossed over to support Nagin and Landrieu. Black voters, who made up a little more than half of all voters in the primary, had higher turnout, he said.
“The bottom line is we ended up with the mayor who represents the demography of the city,” said Rigamer, who analyzes data from the Secretary of State’s office and other sources.
Deacon at Powerline nails it:
Having witnessed Marion Barry repeatedly elected mayor of Washington, D.C., I can’t say I’m surprised at Nagin’s success. Re-electing an unsuccessful or disgraced mayor apparently can become a source of civic pride, particularly when the racial politics are right.
Others blogging about this: Wizbang, Michelle Malkin, Blog For All
In other Louisiana politics news, the FBI raided Representative William Jefferson’s Capitol Hill Congressional offices last night as part of an ongoing ethics inquiry. Via the NYT:
WASHINGTON, May 20 — The F.B.I. raided the Congressional offices of Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, on Saturday night as part of a corruption investigation focused on the lawmaker and on a Kentucky businessman who has pleaded guilty to trying to bribe him.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that the unusual raid on a Congressional office began about 7:15 p.m., when agents entered Mr. Jefferson’s suite of offices in the Rayburn House Office Building, and was being conducted as part of an “ongoing corruption investigation.”
The statement offered no details of what was sought or of how long F.B.I. agents would remain in the building, which is across the street from the Capitol.
An F.B.I. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing criminal investigation, said it was the first time the agency had raided a lawmaker’s office on Capitol Hill.
Stay tuned …
PM Update I: The AP is reporting that there is a tape showing Jefferson accepting $100K from a FBI informant:
A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.
At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company’s deal for work in Africa.
As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker’s family might receive, the congressman “began laughing and said, ‘All these damn notes we’re writing to each other as if we’re talking, as if the FBI is watching,’” according to the affidavit.
How much do you want to bet that Democrats in Washington will either a) give statements of tepid condemnation towards the evidence shown in the videotape, b) say Republicans are using Jefferson in an attempt to distract from the Republican “culture of corruption”, and/or c) say he’s being targeted because he’s black?
(Hat tip: Captain Ed)
PM Update II: Back to Nagin — wow … if this is true, I wonder if Howard Dean will be vilified as a racist for supporting a white man over a black man? Via Drudge:
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) secretly placed political operatives in the city of New Orleans to work against the reelection efforts of incumbent Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean made the decision himself to back mayoral candidate and sitting Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu (D-LA), sources reveal.
Dean came to the decision to back the white challenger, over the African-American incumbent Nagin, despite concerns amongst senior black officials in the Party that the DNC should stay neutral.
The DNC teams actively worked to defeat Nagin under the auspice of the committee’s voting rights program.
The party’s field efforts also coincided with a national effort by Democrat contributors to support Landrieu.
Landrieu had outraised Nagin by a wide margin – $3.3 million to $541,980.
Preliminary campaign finance reports indicate many of Landrieu’s contributions came from out of state white Democrat leaders and financiers, including a $1,000 contribution from Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) PAC.
The defeat of Mitch Landrieu is the latest setback for Dean’s often criticized field operation.
No comment yet from the Dr. of Disology.
Related Toldjah So posts:
- Democrats and ethics
- Mayor Nagin may not get his “chocolate city” wish
- Great suggestion for a new Ben and Jerry’s flavor: New Orlean’s Chocolate Chip Mardi Gras
- Nagin revises “chocolate city” comment
- N.O. Mayor Ray Nagin wants a “chocolate” New Orleans
- Race-baiting Democrats and the media’s complicity
- “We’ve gone from fire hoses to levees.”
- Media pushes “white guilt” angle
- Exploiting the Katrina tragedy
- The race card is officially on the table
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It’s a curious animal that requires such repeated beatings. Failure is good and inabilities are rewarded.
I wonder if Mayor Nagin had run against DC’s Marion Barry, what kind of flat spin they’d be in right now. A battle of the bads run off or is that run outs.
I can hear Captain and Tenile (SP?) in the background now…..”Do that to me one more time, once is never enough…….”
I was checking out the link from The Sandbox about the quagmire state and the first thing I read to the left is Mayor Nagin re-elected.
Then I remembered that I just clicked on the “Iraqi parliment approves new Iraq unity government”.
I guess you’da had to have been there.
Apparently, the people of New Orleans are still reeling from Katrina. I wonder what’s up with Landrieu if Nagin was considered the better choice.
Marshall: Folks like us would think that there would obviously need to be something hinky about Landrieu, but time and time again, the logic doesn’t exist to explain it away.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with race or sheer numbers of racially motivated voters.
Yes this is tough to explain. It certainly can’t be how well he handled the disaster of the flooding after Katrina. Ohhh well, like a good friend of mine said ohhh so long to me. Becareful what you pray for, you just might get it.
Please Ohhh Lord, if you could just drop ST in my lap, I would be most appreciative. Thanks Much – Lorica 
As a New Orleanian, I’d vote for Ronald McDonald before voting for a Landrieu. Take a look at the corruption of the Landrieu family and their radical leftism that makes Kathleen Blanco look like a member of Karl Rove’s team.
Nagin won because he received strong backing from Republicans. That, combined with the the African-American vote, put him over the top. Very strange bedfellows indeed. The Republicans were more terrified of the Landrieu family than four more years under Nagin.
On a bright note, we kicked out half the city council. Entrenched politicians were replaced by successful professionals.
For the people claiming that New Orleans has no interest in change, I’d like to know when your town last voted out half the city government?
Well, it’s obviously racist to vote against a black candidate, no matter how dangerously incompetent he may be.
Let’s see, Nagin drug his feet in announcing an evacuation, didn’t make use of existing buses to evacuate the poor who didn’t have any other way out, sent people into either ill supplied (the Dome) or unsupplied (the convention center) hellholes and did nothing to help them out, “hid” on the 27th floor of a hotel with no working elevators, probably so that no one would climb up and bother him, had to be almost forcibly evicted from the bathroom on Air Force One where he was hiding, and then skipped town and headed for Dallas to be with his family while New Orleans suffered and fell apart.
Sounds like a man I’d want to re-elect to mayor, if I hated New Orleans and wanted to see it suffer, again and again. But of course, it’s all FEMA’s and Bush’s fault.
New Orleans deserves what it gets.
Recall that old saw that says “One half of Louisiana is under water & the other half is under indictment.”
“and then skipped town and headed for Dallas to be with his family while New Orleans suffered and fell apart.”
And he doesn’t even know how to play the guitar
We must stop nagin poor ray, it is all black and white.
This just gets better and better…
Drudge has a report up that, despite what black Democratic leaders wanted, Howard Dean sent in, in secret, Democratic operatives who worked against Nagin while part of their “voter rights” efforts. ROFL!
While I agree Nagin is a twit who shouldn’t be in office, the fact that the oh so “for the poor black man” Democrats were secretly trying to undermine a black candidate is priceless, but of course will get a complete pass from the press.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash5no.htm
‘While I agree Nagin is a twit who shouldn’t be in office, the fact that the oh so “for the poor black man” Democrats were secretly trying to undermine a black candidate is priceless, but of course will get a complete pass from the press.’
There must be some way to spin the fact that democrats are failing to live up to your caricature.
A passing thought: From what I’ve heard and read about the Landrieu family, they may actually be worse than Nagin. Nagin seems to be a buffoon, but Landrieu seems to come from a family that feels it’s “entitled” to power (a la the Kennedys). I’m not sure which is worse, but it may be a tie when all is said and done. Sigh . . . and I thought some of the politicians in my home state (Rendell-sylvania) were bad.
That’s a good point Beth, I know little about the Landrieu’s, but LA is steeped in corruption. This may well have come down to a contest between an incompetent small time crook and a sleazy big time crook. Tough choice.
Being LA, I guess voting for a Republican was out of the question.
And he doesn’t even know how to play the guitar
Hey andrew, know what it said on the blues man’s tombstone?
“Didn’t wake up this morning…”
The Culture of Corruption….
Don’t you just love it?
Where is the media?
Jefferson, a Democrat says he will not resign for office, even after both associates plead guilty and testified that they helped the New Orleans Democrat Jefferson with bribery.
I posted more on it Here.
My tribute to Jefferson during his hard time to come:
Reminds me of an old shaggy rap – It wasn’t me:
Not to excuse his problems and past mistakes, but I give Nagin credit for praising President Bush in his victory speech (perhaps a slap back at Dean for the DNC’s behind-the-scenes manuevering on behalf of the Landrieus, but still a welcome statement). I also appreciate Nagin’s statement, outlined above, which begins “It’s time for us to stop the bickering” and calls for racial reconciliation in New Orleans. If he means all of this, maybe he’s grown up a little…
STEVE in Lakewood, California
andrew, Democrats live in a Culture of Corruption. William Jefferson of New Orleans typifies that paradiagm.
Oh, andrew, lying about it only reforces the Culture of Corruption label Democrats wear.
Wasn’t Jefferson the one who diverted National Guard troops and vehicles in the aftermath of Katrina to take him to his house so he could recover boxes of records and other stuff? Now we know why he was so anxious to get to his flooded house and retrieve those boxes.
Can’t have the “cold hard cash” floating away like ice cubes in the flood…
“andrew, Democrats live in a Culture of Corruption.”
The ones that do get busted. He should have gotten on the K-street plan. That’s the way to do it.
- Apparently his house was about to be “awash” in bills, swimming in Jefferson’s.
- Bang
andrew, you are a kool-aid drinker. You can’t even condemn a crook like Jefferson just because he’s a Democrat. You are a sad example of the supporters of the Democrat party, the party of corruption and cowardice.
I actually feel sorry for those who are stuck there but if, as Frolic posted earlier, the good people that are there voted out half the city council, maybe there’s hope.
I still find it amazing that when the Jeffersons are exposed for what they are, the sound minded folks who consider themselves good, intelligent democrats, can’t bring themselves to even acknowledge the blatant greed and corruption for what it is. How does the “fix it” process go forward from there w/o such a declaration.
Woops PCD- I guess I should’ve read yours first, before posting. I should’ve said, “What he said”.
“Andrew, you are a kool-aid drinker. You can’t even condemn a crook like Jefferson just because he’s a Democrat.”
I said the corrupt democrats get busted. That’s not a condemnation? I said he should have done it the smooth way. Thats an indictment of how he did it.
“This may well have come down to a contest between an incompetent small time crook and a sleazy big time crook. Tough choice.”
Severian: A lot of things have been said about Nagin (much of it deserved), but I don’t think he’s ever been accused of corruption. In fact, I would venture to say that his last term was the only honest one of the past 50 or so years. If I weren’t from New Orleans, I probably would know very little about Nagin, aside from his handling of Katrina and his “chocolate city” remark. To those outside of the city, he probably seems like a cross between Marion Barry and Al Sharpton. Nagin ran in 2002 as a businessman and political outsider. I can’t defend everything Nagin has done or said, but I think that Katrina would have made any mayor in America look like a fool.
The news today that the Democrat establishment tried to kick him out is hardly surprising. In 2003, he endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal for governor, a move that earned the ire of Blanco and Democratic establishment.
I live outside of the city, so I couldn’t vote in the election, but with a choice between Landrieu and Nagin, I would have voted for Nagin. While Nagin may not be a step forward, Landrieu would be two steps back. Nagin is term-limited after this term; had Landrieu won, we would have him until 2014 (no incumbent mayor has lost re-election in 60 years). Plus, it hinders Mitch’s political career and prevents him from entering the national scene, like his sister.
Thanks for the insight into local politics NOLA lurker. I appreciate the views of someone close enough to see what’s really happening.
Given what you say, and a limit of choices between Nagin and Landrieu, I probably would have voted for Nagin if I didn’t sit the whole thing out.
WRT how mayors handle crisis, not many Guiliani’s in the world I guess, he was above average, I certainly know our local mayor couldn’t find his backside with both hands at the best of times. Lord help us if we have a disaster.
NOLA I too appreciate your perspective. Reality is a tough thing to get an accurate grasp of when we’re far away. Hope I didn’t offend your sensibilities with my earlier remarks.
I do however, also agreee with Sev and take some exception with the “…any mayor…” part.