Now that State Senator Ed Murray has withdrawn from the mayor's race, an interesting shift has taken place. There is no "black" candidate running for mayor. Oh, certainly, there are three African-Americans still vying to run City Hall, James Perry, Troy Henry, and Nadine Ramsey, but none of them are part of the pre-storm political establishment. Da Paper dismisses them as lightweights, supporting that dismissal with the fact that Perry and Henry have never run for office and Ramsey has never run a serious campaign.
(more analysis after the jump)
Mitch Landrieu, John Georges, and Rob Couhig round out the list of major candidates in the race. In terms of money, Landrieu and Georges are the leaders, with Mitch having the strongest fund raising infrastructure and Georges having the largest personal fortune. Couhig is the only remaing serious GOP candidate (other than Georges, who really can't be considered a Democrat in spite of his registration). A race where two white candidates are the front-runners hasn't happened since the 1970.
At face value, one would think the logical move for Perry, Henry, or Ramsey would be to assume the mantle of the "black" candidate in an attempt to leave the other two behind. There are two problems with this strategy. First is that the base support for all three candidates is outside of the neighborhoods and organizations that were the go-to folks for black politicians in the city. Nadine Ramsey is a Holy Angels grad who went to Tulane Law and now lives in Algiers. Troy Henry went to St. Augustine, then Carnegie-Mellon, and touts himself as a "former corporate executive." James Perry's work with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center is probably the closest thing to urban street-cred, and he's the only public school grad of the three (McMain/UNO). But Perry's appealing to a much wider base, turning to the national NetRoots for fund raising. None of the three African-American candidates in the race have to try to be the "black" candidate.
And it wouldn't help them if they did, anyway. To be a "black" candidate in 2010 means running on the legacy of Marc "many of my friends and associates are in federal prison" Morial, and C. Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin. SeeRay didn't even start out as the "black" candidate; in 2002, he was the "corporate" candidate, running as a cable television executive and partner in the local minor-league hockey franchise. He ran against then-NOPD Superintendent Richard Pennington, who was Markey-Marc's hand-picked successor. SeeRay didn't decide to be a "black" candidate until he came up against Landrieu in the last election. Right now, none of the candidates want to run on the coattails of one of the most corrupt (Morial) or one of the most inept (Nagin) mayors the city's had. The broad, cross-racial, support that both Landrieu and Perry are receiving is a solid indicator that politics in the city have moved passed black/white.
Would that change if a runoff breaks down black-white? Doubtful. Mitch Landrieu's name recognition and money is almost certain to put him ahead of the pack. GOP voters hate Landrieu because of his father and his sister. Had John Georges returned to the GOP fold after his failed attempt to run for governor as an independent against Piyush Jindal, he would have generated serious support among white-bread/Uptown/Lakeview GOP voters. Rob Couhig has so little respect amongs local Republicans (he backed SeeRay in the runoff against Landrieu last time) that they endorsed Ed Murray, who is now out of the race. Unless Jay Batt's run for Council District A generates interest, there's no incentive for Republicans to come out. There's more votes (and more money) open to Perry or Henry by not pulling a "Chocolate City" stunt and turning off the Uptowners.
The bottom line here is that we're starting to have some serious discussions on the future of New Orleans. If Georges makes the runoff, the campaign will sink as his Republican sleaze machine behind the scenes pushes things that way. If it's Landrieu/Perry or Landrieu/Henry, the city gets the discussions it deserves.