Borr-ing!

I don't mean Helena Moreno is a boring candidate. It's just boring that all of the set pieces in the 2017 municipal election diorama are arranging themselves exactly as everyone predicted they would.

It’s official: State Rep. Helena Moreno is running for an at-large seat on the New Orleans City Council.

Surrounded by dozens of supporters on the top floor of Basin Street Station on Thursday, Moreno confirmed her candidacy in the October election, one of the first major announcements of the city’s political season.

“I’ve really enjoyed working on state policy. I have,” said Moreno, a former television news anchor.

“But I’ve been listening to you, and I’ve heard you, and there’s more to do right here at home.”

She said she will seek the Division 1 at-large seat now held by Stacy Head, who is term-limited.

And then we get into the pro-forma discussion of "Who-is-White" and "Who-is-Black" and which At Large seat each is supposed to run for. It's a symptom of a lackluster political environment when everything is set up in advance before most voters are even paying attention.

I'm starting to worry about this with regard to the mayoral field as well.  Conventional wisdom currently holds that Jason Williams is out of the running there. And, although we hear often that JP Morrell and Walt Leger are considering it, they could both end up passing.  And assuming Torres is just faking everyone out for attention, that would leave us with, what? LaToya, Bagneris, and Troy Carter?  Jesus, why should anyone even bother?

One gets the impression Clancy DuBos may be just as bored. Because why else would he throw these names out? It can't possibly be because he's actually heard anything... can it?

Dubos also expects a wild card or two, possibly a well-known businessman -- the daughter and sister of former mayors -- and a sitting district attorney.

"Sidney Torres is a potential wild card," DuBos said. "So is Monique Morial. So is Leon Cannazzaro."(sic)

Leon for mayor is a pretty funny idea. Maybe we should do this. Cannizzaro can run for mayor. Williams can be DA. Mitch can run for Sheriff and Gusman can go be on the City Council.  Every 8-10 years, everybody just swaps departments. Every now and then somebody goes to jail, though. In which case that person has to sit out a few rounds until they get a radio show or something.

Anyway, the actual worry here is there is so much going on in the city of New Orleans right now that people at the grass roots level are worried about; inequality, lack of opportunity, a failing and corrupt school privatization scheme, a broken and brutal criminal justice system, an affordable housing crisis, and an official preference for serving the tourism industry at the expense of residents.

The establishment politicos currently shuffling from job to job barely care about any of these issues. Or, at least, when they do, they tend to interface with it from the point of view of the privileged classes in which they themselves circulate. We need a politics that responds directly to the people on the bottom.  It doesn't look like this round of local elections is going to give us that.