Reenacting the Battle of 1987
By Mike Bayham
March 7, 2002

Louisiana politics and New Orleans politics tend be polar opposites for a number of reasons.  Aside from the country versus city comparison, the most telling evidence can be found in the election results.  For example, a Republican might carry Louisiana with 56% of the vote while at the same time get nuked in the city with 80% of the vote going to a Democrat.

The reason for this can be found in the racial demographics of the state and New Orleans.  The state of Louisiana has a white to black ratio of 2 to 1.  New Orleans, conversely, has a black to white ratio of 2 to 1.  These numbers are important because black voters support Democratic candidates in high eighties-low nineties in terms of percentage.  

This racial-partisan breakdown has resulted in the election of fairly conservative governors of Louisiana and unapologetic liberals to the office of mayor.  It has also been the root more than a few political battles between the state's two most prominent leaders.  

However, for the first time I can remember, the New Orleans 2002 elections took on a strong resemblance, with only a few deviations, to the state's most interesting governor's race that did not lead to national embarrassment.  The race I am talking about of course is the gubernatorial election of 1987.

Like the 1987 governor's race, there was a considerable amount of early jockeying by  candidates who exchanged positions in the polls much like a game of musical chairs.  Also both of these elections ended with the ascension of a relative "outsider" as the chief executive in the end.

You could almost reenact the 1987 battle for the governor's mansion by merely changing the names of the mayoral candidates.  First you'd have Troy Carter playing the role of Jim Brown and then Jim Singleton as Billy Tauzin.  Paulette Irons would stand in for Bob Livingston with Richard Pennington starring as Edwin Edwards.  The star of the show would be Ray Nagin who would take on the lead role as Buddy Roemer.  Vernon Palmer and the good Reverend Leonard Lucas round out the pack as supporting players Speedy O. Long and "Cousin Ken" Lewis respectively, with the remainder of the myriad of mayoral "wanna be's" serving as extras.

Now that the cast has been assigned, let's go over the script, I mean campaigns.  First there was a tremendous amount of instability in the early poll numbers of both elections with the eventual winner polling at the bottom of the pack at the beginning.   Troy Carter is a natural at playing the part of Jim Brown, both of whom lacked a significant political base to run from and would place a disappointing 5th despite previous high hopes.

Singleton and Tauzin, both considered leading candidates at one point in their  campaigns, were undermined by the betrayal of a major political player and further hurt by the presence of Brown-Carter on the ballot.  Singleton and Tauzin would finish a distant fourth place.

Landing in the third spot are the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" candidates Bob Livingston and Paulette Irons.  Both Livingston and Irons were considered locks for a spot in the general election and saw their political fortunes crumble only a short time before election day.  The two were also considered the primary reform candidates early on and enjoyed the support of Republican leaders.  

Though both candidacies were to be undone by inept campaigns the main difference between the two was that Livingston was stuck in political doldrums and lacked enthusiasm while the fatal blow to Paulette Irons came in an act of political "self-immolation."   Her demise reminded me of the famous picture of a protesting Buddhist monk that doused himself with gasoline and then set himself on fire to protest American involvement in Vietnam.

Irons' front runner status made her public enemy number one to all of the other candidates and was in the process of being bled to death by a thousand cuts until her candidacy was decapitated by the misrepresentation of the death of her brother.  

Their demise is where the comparison picks back up with the political support of reform voters galvanizing behind Ray Nagin, politics' first bald fair-haired champion.  Livingston saw a significant amount of his backing defect to the formerly little known Buddy Roemer with Irons' voters going over to Nagin.  The catalyst behind these vote shifts in large part can be attributed to the patron saint of unsuccessful candidates, the Times Picayune.  

A less obvious comparison between Roemer and Nagin is that despite the image that they were outsiders trying to change the system, both were connected to the very establishment they vowed to change.  Roemer and Nagin were in fact "well connected outsiders."  Roemer's father had at one time been Commissioner of Administration for Edwin Edwards and Nagin's business dealings put him in close contact to Marc Morial and City Hall.

Almost overnight, both of these darkhorses became thoroughbreds racing past the rest of the candidates as the election drew increasingly near.   

And finally there were the "incumbents," Edwin Edwards and Richard Pennington.  Edwards was in his third term as governor and was seeking a then unprecedented fourth.  Though Pennington was not mayor, one can make the argument that because of his role as chief of police, he was the lone mayoral candidate that had executive experience in New Orleans government making him the honorary incumbent.  Also Pennington had the endorsement of Mayor Marc Morial's political organization.  

Both Pennington and Edwards had as many albatrosses as they had advantages.  For Edwards, shaking off the specter of his court trials, the sagging economy and his lack of vision concerning the term was to be an impossible task.  The Chief was to be dogged by the mud thrown by himself and his subordinates, a crime rate that was not cooperating with his political campaign, and his involvement in the failed "3T" campaign.

Come primary night the second noticeable difference can be found.  Edwards, being the astute politician he is, saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to take a pass on a runoff campaign in which most of the defeated candidates committed to work against him.  Pennington, the novice, simply stated that he was not a quitter and trudged on despite the fact that the also-rans were lining up behind Nagin almost immediately.  

One might even surmise that Pennington's general election campaign showed the voters what they missed in the non-existent 1987 general election: an ugly runoff with the trailing candidate swinging blindly in an exercise of futility.  

Much like Roemer did in 1988, Ray Nagin will enter office in a month with a virtual mandate from the voters.  Buddy Roemer promised the voters a "revolution" when in office.  When Nagin entered the ballroom to claim victory on election night to the tune of a rap song with the word "revolution" prominently stated.

What remains to be seen is whether the Roemer-Nagin comparisons end with the election, or will the new "reform mayor" get knocked off balance and join the "reform governor" as a one termer.