With murders spiralling out of control down there, a candidate with law enforcement credentials might be able to crack Mitch's powerful political base. Furthermore, African-Americans have been speaking frankly about the lack of Af-Am elected officials in a city that is more than 60% black. With the city council about to add another white woman (Councilwoman Stacy Head is expected to win the open At-Large seat) to a citywide position, would the combination of the two elements make a popular, experienced politician like Sheriff Gusman have a chance in 2014? It seems like a long way away.
Y'all can see the #'s over at the Secretary of State's website. Once you get to that page, click on the Parish tab, and choose Orleans Parish to see all the results for the entire Parish.
But the election of Mitch Landrieu to the Mayoralty is yet another step in the right direction after all the political mis-steps in the years following Katrina.
This morning, the Secretaries of Homeland Security and HUD announced that Louisiana will see "hundreds of millions" of dollars committed to the state's long-term hurricane recovery plans.
While this is welcome news, I just have two questions about this photo published by the Times-Picayune:
1. Where's C. Ray?
2. Where's Ed Blakely? (hat tip to Jeffrey)
Also, why is Governor PBJ hanging in the background? Is it because he doesn't believe that the federal government should be spending money nowadays?
UPDATE: The Advocate reports on the same event, but the photo they published, taken at the same general location - SUNO - has Nagin, but not Governor PBJ or Lt. Gov. Landrieu. What's up with that? And why does the Times-Picayune's photo have PBJ and Landrieu, but not Nagin?
Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu, working with private sector cultural attractions, has spearheaded an effort to create the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail. Today's NY Times had an article in their Travel section about it.
I learned some very interesting things from the article, such as the fact that Faubourg Tremé is the oldest surviving black community in the United States. It's the neighborhood on the northern fringe of Vieux Carre, or the French Quarter:
"Throughout the 19th century, Tremé (named after Claude Tremé, a Frenchman who split up the lots and sold them off) was populated by free people of color - many of them fair-skinned French-speaking Creoles - who identified more with their European than African ancestry as they dominated the trades as merchants, businessmen and real estate speculators."
You can learn more about this neighborhood in New Orleans' African American Museum, located in the heart of Tremé. I know that I will be heading there once my wife and I are settled in New Orleans.
The Louisiana African American Heritage Trail spans 26 cities, in all parts of Louisiana, from New Orleans, to Plantation Country up the Mississippi River, to Cajun Country in Acadiana, to Lake Charles, to I-49 from Lafayette through Alexandria all the way to Shreveport. And it goes east to Monroe along 1-20 down to Talluluh, where the Hermione Museum is located.
That NY Times article also taught me something about Natchitoches:
"But a couple of hours north, the Louisiana landscape opens wide, and as you travel along Highway 1 toward the town of Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-ah-tish), home of the Cane River Creoles, the hard stories in Donaldsonville fade under the great magnolias that shade the entrance of Melrose Plantation. This is where the love story of Marie-Therese, known as Coincoin, the grand matriarch of Melrose, took place.
Raised as a slave in the household of a Louisiana military commander, Marie-Therese was later sold to Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, a French merchant. The two fell in love and she eventually bore him 10 children. Marie-Therese and her children eventually gained their freedom and became wealthy landowners in their own right. As the story goes, Marie-Therese Metoyer owned slaves but also bought many slaves their freedom along the way.
One of her sons, Nicholas Augustin Metoyer, financed the first Catholic church in the United States built for people of color. St. Augustine Catholic Church was founded in 1803 and is located in Natchitoches."
Lt. Governor Landrieu has it right ... this trail shows how "hope hits the streets." I know this because when my wife and I made the decision to leave Louisiana back in 2005, a very good friend advised us to take in a little bit of American history along the way by driving through the Black Belt of Alabama en route to stay with family in South Carolina on our way back to
On that trip, we went to Selma, and walked from the First Baptist Church, where the march that later became known as "Bloody Sunday" started and all of 6 blocks to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge, where Bloody Sunday happened.
From there, we drove to Montgomery along Rte. 80, where a group of Ku Klux Klansmen, including an FBI informant, gunned down Viola Liuzzo as she was ferrying civil rights workers from Selma to Montgomery after the second Selma to Montgomery march in March of 1965.
Once we reached Montgomery, that friend in New Orleans was able to have us be given a tour of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which they do not normally do due to security concerns. Our tour guide advised us to take in Montgomery, where the Confederate White House still stands today, along with Dr. Martin Luther King's church in Montgomery, AL.
While some of the things we saw broke my heart, it does give me hope that 40 years later, we are on the verge of nominating a black man to be the Democratic Party standard bearer in this year's Presidential elections. I'm not saying that this mere fact will solve our nation's continuing racial and socio-economic problems ... there is much work to be done ... but at least it's yet another step in the journey, as is the creation of the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
Governor: This is too easy. We've got a Fundamentalist Blowhard in Jindal, a rich businessman who thinks he can buy the Governor's chair in Georges, a DINO in Boasso, and a true progressive fighter in Campbell.
I appreciate that many folks are unconvinced by Campbell's tax plan, going so far as to say that Galveston and Mobile will take a lot of business away from Louisiana, but where's their proof? All of our nation's oil refineries are operating at 95% capacity. There's only so much the oil barons can divert to other refineries.
Here's what gets Campbell my vote, and my endorsement: He's been fighting for all Louisianans for the past 30 years. Here's just a sample of what he's done:
In the mid-1980s he created the Bossier Educational Excellence Fund for Bossier Parish schools from Louisiana Downs racetrack revenues; the BEEF now contains $12 million raised from racetrack and casino revenues. Using BEEF as a model, he created the $1-billion Louisiana Educational Excellence Fund for local schools from the state Tobacco Settlement.
In 2001 he coauthored the "Do Not Call" legislation protecting consumers from sales calls at home.
At the PSC Campbell has pushed to make utility companies and the commission more accountable to the people. He has led efforts to restrict entertainment of commissioners and staff by utilities. He hosts public meetings in each parish in his district each year, and persuaded the full commission to move its monthly meetings around the state.
In 2004 he made national and international news by leading the effort to provide telephone service for the Mink and Shaw communities, the last areas of Louisiana to receive telephones.
In 2005 he persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to set aside $39 million to provide free cellular phones to Hurricane Katrina evacuees. He has championed job-creation by utilities, efforts to make bill-paying more convenient and the use of renewable energy.
Lt. Governor: There's no question on this one - it's Mitch. He's done a great job for our state, and he deserves to be re-elected.
Attorney General: I'm tired of Foti. Royal's a Republican good ole boy. I'm backing Buddy Caldwell.
SD 14: I don't like how DeCuir's mail sounds like "Bobby's." Dorsey's another Cleo in the making, I think. And Schilling was put in the race to take votes from DeCuir. I'm still not sure who back in this one.
HD 67: I LOVE what I've heard and seen from David Brown - he's an environmental lawyer, and he'll bring some good progressive views into the State Senate. But I've watched Pat Smith on the School Board, and she's done some mighty fine work supporting the unionizing of teachers. I know Lorri Burgess is a City Councilmember that has done much to piss off many folks by the way she approaches her job. She definitely DOES NOT have my endorsement or vote. DKF supports both David Brown and Pat Smith.
Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu has ruled out a race for governor. He is the third major Democrat to pass on the race which currently shows GOP Congressman Bobby Jindal with a wide lead in the polls. Gov. Kathleen Blanco previously had decided not to seek a second term and former U.S. Sen. John Breaux considered running for the state's top spot and announced last week he would not be a candidate.
