Day: April 21, 2006

New Orleans residents vote for mayor tomorrow. There are twenty-three candidates on the ballot. Will Ray Nagin survive?

The election, which includes seven City Council seats and other local offices, was originally scheduled to take place Feb. 4 but was postponed because of the damage and dislocation caused by Katrina.

Of the city’s 297,000 registered voters, about 20,000 cast ballots early by mail or fax or at satellite voting stations set up around the state.

Some voters are expected to drive in from far-flung cities on Saturday. Several hundred planned to arrive from Atlanta on buses provided by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s former church, Ebenezer Baptist Church.

The turnout is being closely watched by civil rights groups, which have questioned whether the election in a city that was once two-thirds black will be fair with so many black voters scattered around the country.

Less than half the city’s pre-Katrina population of nearly half a million has returned. As a result, candidates have had to travel to cities like Atlanta and Houston, where many evacuees live, to get their message across.

The polls have offered little guidance because they account only for residents with home phones in New Orleans — a minority of potential voters. But most observers believe Nagin, who is black, will advance to the runoff against Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu or executive Ron Forman. Both challengers are white.

Setting aside the campaign strategies and the obvious racial overtones, one thing is crystal clear. The next mayor will face a monumental job – the rebuilding of a destroyed city.

Four-fifths of the city was flooded, and large parts of New Orleans are still woeful expanses of ruined homes and rusting cars. Rebuilding plans — and the federal money to pay for them — are still being debated. Nearly all the public schools remain closed, and the tourism business, long the economy’s anchor, has drawn few conventions.

So, the winner actually won’t win anything. The job ahead of the individual won’t be easy at all. Wimps need not apply. 

This election is likely to be the first mayoral race watched nationwide.

UPDATE: Runoff

Finally, we have consequences.

A CIA officer has been relieved of his duty after being caught leaking classified information to the media.

CIA officials will not reveal the officer’s name, assignment, or the information that was leaked. The firing is a highly unusual move, although there has been an ongoing investigation into leaks in the CIA.

One official called this a “damaging leak” that deals with operational information and said the fired officer “knowingly and willfully” leaked the information to the media and “was caught.”

If there’s one there’s two, three or more. Find ‘em and fire ‘em all.

Can you hear the tolling of the bell?

A U.S. appeals court ruled Thursday that public schools can remove clothing with slogans it deems hurtful. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a San Diego high school’s contention that it had the right to ban a T-shirt with the message “Homosexuality is shameful.”

Judge Stephen Reinhardt writes in the majority decision, students “who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation, have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses.”

He adds, “The demeaning of young gay and lesbian students in a school environment is detrimental not only to their psychological health and well-being, but also to their educational development.”

Judge Alex Kozinski disagreed, writing, “The types of speech that could be banned by the school authorities under the Poway High School hate policy are practically without limit. Any speech code that has at its heart avoiding offense to others gives anyone with a thin skin a heckler’s veto – something the Supreme Court has not approved in the past.”

Unrestrained political correctness is America’s greatest weakness.

John Kerry says he is “thinking hard” about another run for the presidency.

“I will make that decision toward the end of the year, but I’m thinking about it hard,” Kerry told the Latin Economic Forum at the United Nations, joking that if he can pick up the 60,000 votes in Ohio that cost him the 2004 election, he’d have the race sewn up.

Kerry assumes that everyone who voted for him in the first round would vote for him once more in ‘08, as if nothing has changed since November 2nd, 2004. We all know what happens when you assume something. And then, there is the Hillary factor. Early pollsters claim that Mrs. Clinton has the support of 43 percent of Democrats, leaving Kerry with a miniscule 10 percent. That kind of gap doesn’t leave a lot of campaign money on the table. Still, Kerry is preparing to challenge Hillary, should she officially decide to enter the race.

Oh, and let’s not forget Al Gore. There’s plenty of buzz about another run for the White House for the former Vice President. One glance at his website and it’s obvious that he has a toe in the water.

Too bad none of it matters. The results are easily predictable. A Clinton, Kerry, or Gore campaign will mean another lost election and another “out of power” term for the Democrats.

— Clinton is hated by too many Americans, and that means she can’t win over a majority. Her record as a Senator is laughable. Her history is scandal ridden, and she won’t be able to avoid questions she’s so far refused to answer.

— Kerry believes he only has to win over 60,000 more voters. He’s wrong. Kerry’s reputation is his problem. All you have to say is “flip-flop” and the man is weakened. All you have to say is “cut and run” and the man is weakened. All you have to do is pull out the Swift Boat ads and the guy is weakened. Apparently, Kerry is naive enough to believe none of this would be resurrected in a 2008 campaign. Wrong again John. The bottom line for Kerry is this. He ran, he lost, that’s it. Most Americans won’t give him another shot.

— Al Gore…ah, where do I start? Half the time he’s “Mr. Global Warming”. The other half of the time he is “Mr. Bush Hater”. Most Americans don’t pay attention to environmental issues, so a yammering stump speech about melting polar ice will be an instant tranquilizer. Likewise, an incessant banging of the hate Bush (and all Republicans) drum may be raw meat for the mooniest of moonbats, but it just doesn’t resonate with a majority of voters. If you remove these two topics from Gore’s portfolio, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything else worth mentioning. His record as a Senator is barely a memory for most Americans, and Gore’s record as Vice President was lackluster.

Trotting out the same old tired faces and weary platforms means one thing for the Democrats. They’ll be dead on arrival in 2008.