New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin wins narrow re-election

[Terminator]

NEW ORLEANS May 20, 2006 (AP)— Mayor Ray Nagin, whose shoot-from-the-hip style was both praised and scorned after Hurricane Katrina, narrowly won re-election over Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on Saturday in the race to oversee one of the biggest rebuilding projects in U.S. history.

"I greet you all in the spirit of unity because if we are unified there is nothing we cannot do," Nagin said in a joyful victory speech that took on the tone of Sunday sermon.

" We are ready to take off. We have citizens around the country who want to come back to the city of New Orleans, and we're going to get them all back," he said. "It's time for us to stop the bickering. It's time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It's time for us to be one New Orleans."

With all 442 precincts reporting, Nagin had 52.3 percent, or 59,460 votes, to Landrieu's 47.7 percent, or 54,131 votes.

Nagin, a former cable television executive first elected to public office in 2002, argued the city could ill-afford to change course just as rebuilding gathered steam. His second term begins a day before the June 1 start of the next hurricane season in a city where streets are still strewn with rusting, mud-covered cars and entire neighborhoods consist of homes that are empty shells.

With little disagreement on the major issues the right of residents to rebuild in all areas and the urgent need for federal aid for recovery and top-notch levees the race came down to a referendum on leadership styles.

Nagin, a janitor's son from a black, working-class neighborhood, is known for his improvisational, some say impulsive, rhetoric. After Katrina plunged his city into chaos, Nagin was both scorned and praised for a tearful plea for the federal government to "get off their (behinds) and do something" and his now-famous remark that God intended New Orleans to be a "chocolate" city.

In his concession speech, he reached out to his former enemies, thanking President Bush for keeping his commitment to rebuild New Orleans and Gov. Kathleen Blanco for "what she is getting ready to do."

[Piggybank Cop]

Goes to show you; stupid ain't an endangered species.

[CUFFS101]

what a joke this guy is not what that poor city needs.........what were they thinking!!!!

[Andrewtx]

In his concession speech, he reached out to his former enemies, thanking President Bush for keeping his commitment to rebuild New Orleans and Gov. Kathleen Blanco for "what she is getting ready to do."

Victory speech, they mean. At least he was honest in thanking Bush. Shows that he's not entirely self-interested, I guess.

[Ducky]

what a joke this guy is not what that poor city needs.........what were they thinking!!!!

That's the problem - I don't think they were thinking. I have a feeling that most of the voters were just going with the name they knew.