Monday, September 05, 2005

Nagin vs. Blanco

Also, I keep seeing (and hearing) Blanco and Nagin lumped together because they are Democrats. If you think all Democrats wash in the same tub, you might be interested in this article, detailing how "New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin crossed party lines Monday and endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal for governor" right before the election in November 2003.

It's generally thought that Jindal lost to Blanco narrowly because rural whites in North Louisiana didn't want to vote for an American of Indian descent. In the words of pollster Verne Kennedy: "North Louisiana doesn't know Nagin. They think of him as just another black New Orleans mayor."

Why did Nagin endorse Jindal over fellow Democrat Blanco?

"Bobby Jindal understands that all of Louisiana benefits from and needs a strong New Orleans," Nagin said. With Jindal as governor, "New Orleans and the rest of the state will be partners, not adversaries - which is critical because we can only move this state forward together."


These are just some of the fault lines in Louisiana politics that all y'all who've never spent much time in the state are only beginning to uncover.

P.S. If you checked in earlier, you might wonder why I broke the preceding post into two and rewrote the first half of it. That's the way I blog; I like to throw up a first draft, look at it on the template, and then make my changes. Occasionally major changes need to be made -- I was way too soft on Governor Blanco so that has been rectified.

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