NEW ORLEANS — Jubilant crowds are flocking to New Orleans this weekend for Carnival parades and to celebrate the Saints’ first-ever Super Bowl appearance. Oh, and then there is the little matter of picking someone to lead the city once Mayor Ray Nagin, the political face of Katrina-battered New Orleans, steps down.
Amid the festivity, voters face a serious task today: electing a mayor to deal with uneven recovery from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina and lingering troubles such as crime.
And it could be the first time in three decades that the predominantly African-American city elects a white mayor, as black political power seems to have waned. The last white mayor, Moon Landrieu, left the post in 1979.
Now his son, Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, 49, is making his third run for mayor and is widely seen as the leader of an 11-candidate pack hoping to succeed the term-limited Nagin. The question was whether Landrieu, also the brother of Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, would win an outright majority or be forced into a March 6 runoff.
Businessman John Georges, who also is white and has put more than $3 million of his own money into the campaign, was hoping for at least a second-place finish and a spot in the runoff.
However, black business consultant Troy Henry also was seen as a runoff contender. He has decried local news organizations’ emphasis on the possibility of a white mayor being elected, though his criticism was blunted this week when two local African-American publications endorsed Georges and another backed Landrieu.
More than 16,000 voters had already cast ballots during the early-voting period, far more than the just over 2,000 who cast early ballots in 2002. About 22,000 cast early ballots in 2006, though that was an unusual year — thousands of residents still displaced by Katrina cast ballots at early-voting satellite sites across the state.
Nagin was elected with a large white vote in 2002. He defeated Landrieu in 2006, months after Katrina, with strong black support fueled in part by fears African-Americans were being muscled out of post-Katrina politics. His administration has faced corruption charges and ceaseless news of violent crime — 189 homicides in the past year. A University of New Orleans poll last year put his approval rating at 24 percent.
Since 2006, black political power appears to have waned. Analysts point to several possible reasons, including the disruption of black neighborhoods and political networks and failure of the black power base to nurture new leaders.
