Our Mayor--in Houston, too . . .

Ya, its a horrible picture taken at 80 mph while driving . . .

The Fair Family spent a long weekend in Houston--specifically Kingwood--for my wife's cousin's high school graduation Friday night. On Saturday evening we headed down (for the typical Houston 45 minute drive to get anywhere) to Channelview to a favorite Mexican place named Armenta's. The place was no frills, inexpensive, and the large portions tasted pretty good. Following dinner, some of us (the ones not pregnant and the ones not children) went for frosty beverages at a place back towards Kingwood in Humble called Whiskey River. On the way from the restaurant to the bar (another 30+ minute drive), we passed two of the Nagin "Our Mayor" billboards along I-10 and I-610. According to my wife's uncle, there are more of them still remaining along the freeways in/around Houston. At the bottom of each: Paid for by Ben Edwards. Who exactly is this guy and why does he care who the Mayor of New Orleans is? UPDATE, courtesy of bayoustjohndavid: And more on Edwards. Hmmmmmmm.

Yesterday on the drive back to New Orleans from Houston, I noticed more New Orleans election-related billboards on I-10 (facing eastbound only) in the western part of Louisiana between Lake Charles and Lafayette. These two weren't for a particular candidate (at least literally), but were aimed at encouraging black voters to go back to New Orleans specifically to vote. Take a look at the website address posted on the billboard. Does it seem to infer that Nagin not winning the election would be a setback to universal suffrage or "the movement" (as stated on the website)? Or is the site benign in nature simply offering resources to displaced citizens of New Orleans concerning their constitutional right to vote? I'm not so sure how I'd classify it.

I am not for anyone being denied the right to vote. In fact, I do subscribe to the theory (a la Greg Palast) that the results of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections were severely impacted by voting rights infractions upon mostly black American citizens. However, in the case of the City of New Orleans post-KTMB elections, I have my reservations about allowing thousands of former residents (regardless of their race) who are not likely to ever return permanently to New Orleans the ability to directly effect who is to be the leader of and spokesperson for New Orleans for the next four incredibly crucial years. (And by the way--what was this faxing votes in stuff??? Seems ripe for abuse to me.) In my opinion, what's truly amazing is that of the two mayoral runoff candidates, Nagin is the one who's agenda/backers are most in favor of policies/plans that will potentially negatively impact New Orleans' black citizens regardless of the "at the end of the day" aka "Chocolate City" aka "I am indeed a black man" speech. I mean come on, when these sorts of signs (i.e. "Nagin Backed Jindal Over Blanco") are popping up in predominately white neighborhoods such as Lakeview and Forman Uptown by a GOP cool kids club in favor of Nagin at the eleventh hour, the New Orleans black community should have realized something might be up. The people who put up these signs attempting to squeeze the not so enamored with The Landrieu Family white vote (because Moon Landrieu integrated City Hall, PERIOD) over to Nagin do not have the well-being of the black populous in mind. Sorry. I think perhaps our black citizenry (and former citizenry now in Houston, Atlanta, The Stick, etc.) has been duped . . . .

I have one last post to make concerning the Mayoral Runoff Election: the voting results by neighborhood like I did for the primary. And then that's it. Moving forward . . .

UPDATE: Oyster/YRHT has a must-read entitled "State GOP gamesmanship uber alles!"

TAGS: Katrina, New Orleans, NOLA, Election, Nagin, Landrieu, Houston