CSMS StaffNEW ORLEANS – In a tight contest, Mayor Ray Nagin,narrowly defeated Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu considered by the media to be the front runner. Nagin will be the mayor who will have to oversee what the meanstream media calls “one of the biggest rebuilding projects in U.S. history.”“We are ready to take off. We have citizens around the country who want to come back to the city of New Orleans, and we’re going to get them all back,” Nagin said Sunday before a jubilant crowd of supporters.“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,” he continued.According to Associated Press, Nagin won with 52.3 percent, or 59,460 votes, to Landrieu’s 47.7 percent, or 54,131 votes. While the vote was split largely along racial lines, Nagin was able to get 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.But Nagin is up to an easy ride. Many who voted for him and who were bused to the city from all corners of the country did so out of fear that a Landrieu, who is white, would be most likely to go along with conservative agenda to redraw the map of the New Orleans East, including the Lower Ninth Ward, by bulldozing the area and replacing by huge construction projects as it was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. (See Hurricane Katrina) https://csmsmagazine.org/news.php?pg=20051013I48 )Nagin was first elected to public office in 2002. His argument that “the city could ill-afford to change course just as rebuilding gathered” was the cornerstone of his campaign. Nagin has to deliver to the disenfranchised population of the city. Many are still living with relatives with no prospect of returning home any time soon.
New Orleans reelects Ray Nagin amid controversies and great uncertainties
