[StBernard] Georges "wins" Nagin endorsement, but does it help more than hurt?

[Westley Annis]

>From James Quinn - State GOP Talking Head


-----Original Message-----

A Fair Fight blog now at www.lagopblog.com <http://www.lagopblog.com/> 

 

 

Georges "wins" Nagin endorsement, but does it help more than hurt? 

 

With pundits far and wide declaring the African-American vote a critical
component in Saturday's upcoming gubernatorial primary, a story in The
Advocate today - "3 gubernatorial candidates bidding for black vote" -
chronicles the efforts of Sen. Walter Boasso, Public Service Commissioner
Foster Campbell, and businessman John Georges visiting predominately black
congregations and making campaign pitches to minority voters, "occasionally
crossing each other's path on the last Sunday before Saturday's election."  

The three candidates' efforts are to be expected when, according to the
story, two recent "polls showed a large percentage of voters are undecided
and that roughly half of those undecided voters are black - enough votes
that could throw the election into a run-off between Jindal and the one of
his three competitors who can successfully mobilize black voters."  

In terms of name recognition, though, John Georges' efforts appear to have
earned him the backing of perhaps the most prominent black politician in the
state.   As the story reports: 

Sunday Georges picked up the endorsement of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin at
one church.. 

 But Georges had an extra boost from Mayor Nagin.
  
After Nagin called Campbell a "good guy," Nagin then went on to tell the
congregation why he is endorsing Georges. 
 
"I know another guy a little better," Nagin said. "His name is John Georges,
and I'm supporting him." 
 
Nagin cited his previous partnership with Georges in owning the former minor
league hockey team, the New Orleans Brass. He also praised the racial
diversity in the many companies Georges has owned, such as wholesale
grocers, tugboats and video poker machines. 
 
"He was the only major candidate I saw who went to Jena," Nagin said,
echoing one of Georges' favorite boasts.

 Having the mayor of New Orleans on your side should undoubtedly be a good
thing for any gubernatorial candidate, so I won't go into all the reasons
why.   On the other hand, having this New Orleans mayor's support, at this
particular time in the state's history, let alone informing voters that the
"businessman" rationale for your candidacy includes a former Nagin business
partnership, may not be the best possible thing.   And for reasons pointedly
expressed in a recent column by Chris Rose of The Times-Picayune:  

But the problem here, the very real and scary issue at hand, is that we can
pretty much rely on our mayor to say or do something of such enormous folly
at least once a month that it has become routine and we have now come to
accept it as part of the New Normal around here, that's just the way it is. 

The mayor's public detachment from what is going on has gone from puzzling
to perplexing to infuriating to borderline nuts. 

Come to think of it, given some of the "puzzling to perplexing to
infuriating to borderline nuts" behavior of John Georges on the campaign
trail (see http://georgesgonewild.com <http://georgesgonewild.com/>  ),
perhaps the Nagin endorsement of Georges makes perfect, albeit strange and
troubling, sense.