It was all those dang mayors

According to Danae Columbus, the "many many friends" urging Karen Carter Peterson to get into the mayor's race were America's other mayors who wanted her in their club.

During her recent trip to the U.S. Conference of Mayors convention, several mayors from around the country encouraged her to run and made commitments to help with fundraising. Bolstered by their support and the large number of self-proclaimed undecided voters in the early mayoral polls, Carter Peterson began making phone calls to potential supporters on Friday.

After several days of reflection, Carter Peterson realized her path to victory was not clear enough.

In particular, Peterson's path would have been most occluded by her "dear friend" Cantrell who is counting on a similar (though not identical) base of support. And since nothing in politics is worth doing if it isn't super super easy to do, KCP decided not to do it.

At least that appears to be Columbus's take.  I'm still willing to entertain other theories.  For instance, one would think someone of KCP's stature and experience would know how to explore her prospects in a quieter way that doesn't embarrass her "dear friend." So there must have been some purpose to the very public deliberation.

I've seen it suggested it may have been an attempt to push LaToya out of the race. I've also seen it suggested the purpose was actually to boost LaToya's chances.  Yet another theory I've heard is that the feint was more about feeling the landscape out generally. Somebody wanted to see which donors or backers might rethink their approach to the race if Peterson's head suddenly popped up. Or maybe it's something else entirely.

One thing we should mention in light of Columbus's offering is that the new President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors is Mitch Landrieu. If the push to get KCP in the race was coming from that direction, it's reasonable to assume Mitch's hand was in there somewhere. Why? Well, who knows? (See all above) But whatever it is it probably isn't good.

Here is a video of Landrieu's speech at the conference.  Before he gets too far into his pretty goofy remarks about the awesome might of the mayors or whatever, he takes a minute to thank his "mentor" Michael Bloomberg who is among others he cites as, and I am not making this up, "the mayors who are Making America Great Again." Mitch is on record saying that he is "not going to walk away" from city politics. And his NOLAPAC has about $140,000 cash on hand as of the June filing. If his involvement in the election is going to be purposed toward furthering the cause of Bloombergism in New Orleans, that's worth keeping a wary eye on.