Why does everyone hate Mayor Nagin so much? Its Blanco that deserves the blame for Louisiana's poor response. I'd certainly support Nagin over Landrieu.
I’ve never understood your affection for Nagin Don, tell me it isn’t because he started out as a pretty moderate, pro-business Republican?
In all fairness, Blanco fouled up, Brown/FEMA fouled up, Bush (to a much lesser extent) fouled up but so did Nagin…. It was always the actions of Nagin which not only frustrated the efforts (such as they where) of FEMA and the State Authorities but also actively did wrong, not effectively evacuating the city, not preparing for the thousands who sought shelter in the super dome and allowing hundreds of city owned school buses to rust as the waters rose instead of ferrying people out of the city.
Finally since the disaster Nagin’s response has been a mix of blaming everyone but himself and playing the race card to win the support of the very community he never enjoyed an especially strong endorsement from… Nagin’s tenure increasingly seems to lack any drive or imagination beyond “what’s good for Ray Nagin”.
In contrast Landrieu could conceivably have held the post of Lt.Gov in ’07 and could certainly have contested higher offices from there, instead it seems he was drive to abandon the office when his home city suffered the catastrophe of Katrina – in contrast to Nagin’s race based, populist campaign, Landirieu has the solid support of the city’s business community as well as boasting a far more diverse base of support than that of Nagin.
As things stand I think it most likely that Landrieu will hoover-up most of the white and conservative vote that has been largely split, what he must succeed in doing is preventing Nagin from scoring a significant lead amongst Black voters.
