New Orleans Mayor Sees Support Shift

Perhaps it did not bode well for C. Ray Nagin, the mayor of this fraught city, that candidates for the upcoming mayoral election were asked to turn in their filing papers at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. After all, the same facility had become a fetid, lawless and ill-equipped shelter after Hurricane Katrina -- and a fiasco Nagin’s critics have pointed to in questioning his response to the storm.

But it wasn’t so much the building that underscored the minefield Nagin will face in the weeks before the April 22 election. It was the people walking in the door: Some of Nagin’s friends had turned on him.

Several prominent members of the community who backed Nagin when he ran in 2002 have decided to run themselves this time. It is a reflection, analysts said, of the topsy-turvy world of New Orleans politics six months after the storm.

The black community had never widely trusted or welcomed Nagin, who is black. In his previous race for office, the former cable company executive won about 40% of the black vote, and most of that support came from middle-class and upper-middle-class African Americans, most of whom remain displaced by the storm.

He won largely because of widespread support among the city’s corporate elite; Nagin received about 85% of the white vote. This time, many of his supporters in the business community -- who are desperate for New Orleans to stake a claim to viability again -- seem to be abandoning him.

But many blacks, who to a large degree believe that their neighborhoods are about to be bulldozed in favor of a whiter and wealthier city, appear to be backing Nagin this time.

“He has completely reversed his base,” said Edward F. Renwick, director of the Loyola University Institute of Politics in New Orleans.

This is one of the last cities in the nation where the politics of race still are measured in black and white. And now, at 49, Nagin is expected to be the “black candidate” for the first time.

Among the leading contenders challenging Nagin are two prominent men, both white, who were his allies in the past.

One is Mitch Landrieu, Louisiana’s lieutenant governor and the son of former New Orleans Mayor Maurice Edwin “Moon” Landrieu.

The second is Ron Forman, who as president of the Audubon Nature Institute has been credited with much of the success of the city’s aquarium and zoo. Forman served on Nagin’s transition team four years ago. And his wife, Sally, had been one of the mayor’s top aides until her recent resignation, which came long after it became known that her husband was considering challenging her boss for the job.

Landrieu and Forman are expected to siphon much of the support Nagin received from the corporate community in 2002; analysts believe the most likely scenario is that either Landrieu or Forman will wind up in a May 20 runoff against Nagin.

The friendship between the three men has created an awkward dynamic on the campaign trail, with Landrieu and Forman spending a considerable amount of time praising Nagin -- and then explaining why he should be removed from office.

“I consider Ray Nagin a very good friend,” Forman said. “But this is a historic race to elect the best leader to rebuild our city. We have one opportunity to do it right. It’s not about friendship. It’s about who has the best plan for the city and who has the best track record to implement that plan.”

Nagin’s office did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Most analysts say it is too early to predict the outcome of the race with any certainty, particularly with a field of 24 candidates and lingering questions about how displaced residents will be able to cast their ballots.

Voter turnout in New Orleans is expected to run high. But reconstruction authorities estimate that 180,000 of the city’s residents have managed to return, barely more than a third of New Orleans’ pre-storm population of about half a million. At least 200 of the city’s 442 polling sites were damaged or destroyed in the flood.

For displaced residents, the voting process will be more laborious than usual. They will be able to cast ballots at courthouses throughout the state, and activists hope to bus some voters into New Orleans on election day. Those Katrina victims who are living in other states and are unable to return to Louisiana can vote by absentee ballot.

Early polls suggest that Nagin’s effort to look for new support among African Americans is a wise move. A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reported that 9% of whites said they would definitely cast their vote for Nagin, whereas 56% said they would not. The same poll found that 31% of blacks said they would definitely vote for Nagin whereas 35% said they would consider it.

Nagin’s early efforts to cast himself as a black candidate have stumbled at times.

During a Martin Luther King Day speech in January, he declared that New Orleans would once again be a “chocolate city.” The comment was widely seen as an attempt to pander to displaced African Americans, who once constituted about 70% of New Orleans’ population. But it was not well-received by blacks or whites.

Nagin raised eyebrows again at a recent campaign stop in Houston, when he reminded a largely black audience that of his 23 challengers, “very few of them look like us.”

In contrast, Landrieu and Forman have taken pains to appeal to a wide spectrum of voters.

Landrieu -- whose father, the city’s last white mayor, left office in 1978 -- has reminisced on the stump about his father’s efforts to include African Americans in high-level City Hall positions. One of Forman’s campaign commercials ends with an image of him holding a white baby as an African American couple looks on and smiles.

Despite his missteps, Nagin’s campaign could benefit from a reluctance among New Orleans voters, particularly African Americans, to throw mayors out of office after just one term, analysts said. Every mayor since 1936 has served at least two four-year terms, which is now the maximum allowed.

“People are afraid of a change,” said Kim Hudgins, an African American whose home was destroyed in the flood.

“He’s in there already. The fact is that the people he’s running against don’t know African Americans. It’s not that Ray Nagin has done everything right. But we need somebody who came through the struggle and who can relate to the needs of people who are not in their class.”

Reflecting Nagin’s precarious position, however, he will also have to contend with the candidacy of another prominent African American leader, the Rev. Tom Watson.

“The black faith community -- we never really trusted him,” Watson said.

“We were never able to work with him. Now he’s running on this whole racial inference -- suggesting that because there are so many whites in the race that there is some conspiracy to take him out.

“It’s obvious that he is running an ‘I’m-a-black-man’ campaign. It’s the only way he can survive. And my constituents can see right through that.”