New Orleans Mayor’s Race

There are now two very vibrant “mares” running on the New Orleans Mayoral track. 

Leslie Jacobs wants the City Hall top job.  Weeks ago, many of us were wondering if there would be any women willing to step up to the challenging job of rebuilding the International city.  State court Judge, Nadine Ramsey has declared her candidacy for the city’s top position.  Today, Jacobs will be taking her turn to walk the track.      

Jacobs has connections, a proven record and most importantly some money.  As a business executive, a high-official in various community organizations and a former member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, she has bona-fides.

And, again she has money.

Enough money that she will blitz the media;   Enough money that she will begin to compete with John Georges (so far, the only official white candidate) with the green stuff who took the New Orleans vote during the 2007 Gubernatorial election.

She also has a quality that John Georges (who will be trying to allure much of the same base) does not possess.

She is a woman. 

Then, Georges has his own sway with the ladies, politically.  His wife Dathel was one of the founders of the “Women for Georges” group and according to Georges that group had obtained over 2000 females signing up only a week after his mayoral candidacy kickoff and more women are getting on board.   

There is a major difference between the two candidates.   Georges started his campaign with a gathering on Esplanade Avenue featuring two very close black friends and business associates and featuring the strong endorsement of Republican shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger.  It also showcased a room full of potential voters from many sectors of the city.  Afterwards, Georges fielded questions from the media.

Jacobs has a different strategy.  Without much fanfare, her publicist the Brylski Company told some media that Jacobs would be running for the mayoral roses.  Jacobs will not have a formal physical public kickoff at any venue in the city.  She will make her presence known with substantial media buys.  As a result, it might initially be difficult to tell exactly who might be in her corner.

Jacobs, Georges, Edwin Murray, James Perry, Judge Ramsey, and Troy Henry can and will appeal to all sectors of New Orleans.   Should Eddie Sapir jump in, he also will likely be galloping for many of the same votes.  Rob Couhig (a Republican) has not declared and if he does, he would seem to attract more of the conservative democrat, independent and republican ayes.  A few weeks ago, an authoritative source told Bayoubuzz that Irvin Mayfield Jr. would be running for Mayor.  However, there have been few election notes coming from him lately and he is involved in the Municipal Auditorium project and resulting controversy. 

Although none of the African American candidates appear to have the financial resources that Jacobs and Georges can personally invest in the election, once qualifying ends next month, you can expect some of the campaign contributions to start flowing more freely within the backdrop of a very fragile economy.

While this election is quite different from that immediately post-Katrina in 2006, back then, two women also ran for the top job at City Hall.  Peggy Wilson and Virginia Boulet were offering themselves as a political conservative and  a moderate-liberal, respectively.  This year, there most likely will not be such a philosophical variance between the candidacies of Ramsey and Jacobs as both candidates will likely agree on many of the basic issues.

With Jacobs flooding the media outlets, it will be interesting to see how much push she will get and if she can grab some contributions to her campaign coffers from those who might be attracted to her message based upon her public appearances, her background and her media investments. 

Interestingly, months ago, the big question was whether Mitch Landrieu or Arnie Fielkow (or both) would be the people to beat.  Now, the race is much different-- sporting new faces.  But, with some potential candidates still making noises about their run on the election track, many political junkies will not really be able to actively go “betting on” a Mayoral candidate until qualifying--when the election will be in its final racing form and those who might be New Orleans new mayor will officially be at the starting gate.   

Louisiana Senate Race

The snafu of the reporting mechanism of the Stimulus web site, Recovery.gov and related sites are giving David Vitter, the Republicans and critics of the stimulus package ammunition for their candidates and their causes such as the health care reform bill.

The team who set up the Recovery.gov online reporting system has caused some recipients to mislabel their own Congressional districts and therefore makes it appear that stimulus money is going to districts that do not exist.    Senator Vitter has run the controversy up the flag pole and the Republican Senatorial Republican Committee are asking Charlie Melancon to explain his vote for the stimulus.  They are also saying that if the Obama administration cannot get the reporting correct on the stimulus, then, how can they run health care.  They are also implying that this proves the stimulus does not work and those who supported it have been proven mistaken.

Without doubt, Melancon should explain his vote for the stimulus and the Obama administration needs to get its act together so that embarrassing mistakes like this one do not occur.   It is also a public relations win for Vitter, state and national republicans and they are absolutely right for pointing out the glitch.

But, let’s put things in perspective.

Thus far, there is no evidence that the reporting was intentionally deceptive to inflate the efficacy of the stimulus or recovery package.

Also, accidents do happen.  When David Vitter opened the wrong door at a airport causing alarms to go off, would that event automatically make him incompetent as a US Senator?  When Vitter and the GOP talked positively about a health care plan a few months ago and then backed off of a major component of it when it included a major change in employment-based health care, would that snafu make either Senator Vitter or the Louisiana GOP incompetent?

Absolutely not.  They are factors that should be raised and weighed but in the overall scheme of things, they are minor issues. 

The key question is whether the stimulus works.  The stimulus did not just occur in a vacuum.  It came after a financial bailout plan that occurred during the Bush administration when the economy was bordering on depression.

Since then, the economy has shown some growth in various sectors.  Are we in all rolling in the dough right now because of the stimulus?  No.  But, this is not “panic city” that existed last fall and prior to the elections which caused a very experienced public official, John McCain to lose to Barack Obama--a candidate with far less experience.  

The rally around this computer embarrassment is a Republican “red herring”.

If the federal government is so incompetent in everything it does, let’s get rid of medicare, the military, NASA, Homeland Security, the FBI and the CIA. 

Mistakes do happen and this is a face-flusher. 

But, until we are willing to say all of the federal government is inefficient and until we are we are willing to disqualify candidates for opening wrong doors or saying nice words about questionable plans,  and until we are willing to admit the economy is doing better than it was prior to President Obama’s winning the election, and until we are willing to wait to see how the stimulus ultimately helps or hurts the economy, it is simply unfair to blame an absolutely stupid mistake and claim that an entire program won’t work.

If the stimulus is so bad, then, Governor Jindal and the Louisiana legislature should not accept all of its benefits this upcoming year which is approximately one billion dollars--approximately equal to our projected .budget deficit  Without the stimulus, Governor Jindal and the Louisiana legislature would be looking at a 2 billion dollar deficit.   He should also return all of those checks from the stimulus that he dished out this year as tainted money.

One day the Republican party might be able to gloat.  The stimulus might ultimately be viewed by everyone as a failure.  We will find out years from now.  The health care bills passed by Congress might do much more harm than good.  Should they become law, there certainly will be mistakes in implementation.  One day, the entire idea could resoundingly be proven to be a disaster and scrapped.   Right now, we can project, but, in reality, we just don't know.

But smearing two government programs on the basis of a stupid error in planning for its reporting is pure political partisanship and is overstating reality.  It is unfair and is misleading.  It raises questions we should consider about some aspects of the stimulus but it does not automatically label either that program or the health care bill as failures or proven risks.  Nor do relatively minor fumbles by Senator Vitter or the Louisiana GOP make them unworthy of our support or even our vote.