Groundhog Mitch

Will he see his shadow this time?

All of this has the chattering class wondering if another Democrat should pick up the mantle. A half-dozen recently published lists of possible candidates — should Biden withdraw — all include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, 41, who retains support among younger voters; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, 52, who won a state that backed Trump; California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 56, who has money, popularity and a growing national profile; and Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, who is the first woman in history to hold that office and is arguably the default choice.

So: What about Landrieu?

He has spent the last two years traveling tens of thousands of miles around the country. It's a role that has involved helping state and local officials, of both parties, quickly navigate the bureaucracy to get the federal money to start often long hoped-for infrastructure projects — not a bad launching pad for a campaign.

Of all the speculative lists of possible Biden replacements, Landrieu, 63, was mentioned in only one, in what amounted to a footnote.

While Landrieu has given no indication he's interested — and there's no way he could do so right now, without sabotaging Biden — five years ago he was openly flirting with a run.

 Back then, Landrieu said he would never challenge Biden, and presumably that rule still applies.

Okay, well, consider the appearance of this article an "indication he's interested."  That's how this sort of thing works. Mitch was extremely close to doing it last time around.  Like, really close. A media whisper campaign had been dropping his name into the rumor mill as early as 2017. By mid-2018 the whisperers were clearing their throats and speaking more loudly.  It came so close, in fact, that Mitch's  friends at the Bayou Brief  even coordinated an announcement day campaign puff feature that got posted prematurely and then quickly taken down.  I happened to see it come across the RSS and read it in the meantime. I hope everyone involved is still embarrassed. 

Anyway today's article doesn't mention this but we read a few weeks ago that Mitch's former deputy mayor and longtime political operative Ryan Berni has taken a job working for Biden 2024.   In 2020 Berni was one of several familiar soulless Louisiana Democratic Party professional assholes who ended up collecting a few checks from the money bomb set off by former New York City Mayor/billionaire Michael Bloomberg's spectacular failure of a campaign flame out. One assumes they were all available to jump on board with Bloomberg because their schedules were cleared for Mitch.

Four years later there's an incumbent Democratic President on the slate. That's where all the dirty money is. And so that's where characters where Berni are going to be. For now, anyway. But that Democratic President is looking shakier every day.  And maybe some of that money is looking for other places to go. The appearance of fresh rumors in the press would indicate someone is at least hedging bets on it.

Quote of the week

If we can get only one big win out of the post-COVID New Orleans political war, bringing the Convention Center heel would be pretty nice one to have. What's interesting about this board meeting is it sounds like there is caution (or at least embarrassment) over the fact that their big hotel project is still proceeding.  But one also gets the sense that nobody knows how to halt its momentum.

“My bigger point is, I want to make sure we’re thinking about this before we go put up $80 million, $90 million or whatever it is in site costs and other things,” Berni said. “The demand side is going to be different. It’s like post-9/11 or post-Katrina, we’re just living in a different world.”

But Convention Center President and General Manager Michael Sawaya told Berni and the rest of the board that the projects weren’t on pause, at least behind the scenes. Although the virus and related government restrictions have pushed back certain public-facing benchmarks and votes, negotiations with private developers have forged ahead.

In a meeting this week, Sawaya again reported that negotiations on the hotel deal, which were expected to be done in January, were ongoing and that the center’s attorneys were working on a counter-offer that they hoped to send to the developers this week.

At least they're sensitive to the public impression all of this makes.  The tide had been turning against the Convention Center in the months before the virus crisis. But now the emergency has caused longstanding questions about what it does with the hundreds of millions of dollars in public money it is sitting on to gain even more potency. 

And now look what's happening.  I don't think we'd have ever seen a statement like this from a sitting New Orleans City Councilmember before now.

“This whole thing reeks,” Councilwoman Kristin Palmer said in a Thursday phone interview.

“Why do we want to create something that’s going to take away from existing businesses? Because it very well could. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. Are they trying to create this district that’s like Disney World with the Convention Center so people never have to leave?”

That, she said, would defeat the whole purpose of the Convention Center: to attract visitors (and their highly coveted out-of-town cash) and fill up existing hotels and businesses.

“These tourist leaders, these hospitality leaders are saying, ‘We need a whole other thing to attract people to this city,’ ” she said. “I call bull on that. We have so many things that we aren’t marketing that we already have. … We need to flip the script. We need to define tourism on our own level.”

I want to know more about what Kristin thinks we need to "market" differently.  It still sounds like she may think this is question of selling out smarter or something.  But we'll come back to that.  Leaving that aside, this is good to see.  It's about thirty years too late. But it's still good. 

Just remember to keep a list

The Bloomberg phenomenon is fascinating.  Rarely are we presented with such a perfect opportunity, not only to observe the depth and breadth of the moral rot within the professional political class, but also to see so many of the sellouts clearly identify themselves.  Many of your local professional Democrats are amoral grifters who don't give a shit about the problems of poor and working class people or whatever the Democrats still half-assedly claim their brand to be about. They're just in it to suck as much money as can be had out of the process.  And, sure, you know, "everyone's gotta eat." But maybe we can find a better meal ticket than the guy who literally doesn't want people to be able to eat.

Anyway, like I said, the "Bloomberg Effect" may sound at first like a reason to despair but it is actually an opportunity. Every dirtbag who takes his money is telling you something essential about who they are. Make sure you remember to take down their names.

The Bloomberg Louisiana team includes Richard Carbo, who just ran Gov. John Bel Edwards’ re-election campaign; Ryan Berni, a longtime aide to former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; and Bill Rouselle, a long-time strategist who worked on campaigns for Edwards and New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell, among others.

Bloomberg, 77, is a billionaire and former mayor of New York City. He's been running an aggressive, TV-driven campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Carbo will lead the campaign’s efforts in Louisiana as state director.

Bloomberg’s Louisiana operations will include 5 regional offices and more than 20 staffers.

"We are building the most robust presidential campaign operation in the state's history with a team that has a proven track record of helping Democrats win in Louisiana,” Berni said in a statement.

Other members of the team include: Telley Savalas Madina, Organizing Director; Kia Bickham, Political Director; Micah Cormier, Communications Director; Tyler Walker, Digital Director; Emilie Tenenbaum, Operations Director.

The people for whom none of this means a thing

Speaks volumes about the Democratic Party in Louisiana. 

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has selected a team of prominent Louisiana campaign veterans to work on his 2020 efforts.

The Bloomberg Louisiana team includes Richard Carbo, who just ran Gov. John Bel Edwards’ re-election campaign; Ryan Berni, a longtime aide to former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; and Bill Rouselle, a long-time strategist who worked on campaigns for Edwards and New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell, among others.

The pinnacle of success for your most influential political consultants is about electing a meal ticket. Anyone who is in this because they actually care about things is a chump. 

Why do so many people want to burn it all down? It's a mystery.

Can both of these statements be true?

The consultant Mitch hired to tell us all about the problems at Sewerage and Water Board says there were problems, S&WB was aware of the problems, and everybody blew them off.

The report details now well-known mechanical failures and limitations of the city's drainage system. But it also focuses on breakdowns in priorities and a lack of concern and attention to the drainage system in the "years, months and days" before the flood.

All that contributed to a situation in which the S&WB had only 10 percent of its power available during the storm and the hardest-hit areas had only 45 percent to 70 percent of the pumping capacity they theoretically could have had.

As an example, the report notes that after the S&WB was alerted in March that all the turbines that run the drainage system had failed and were offline, there was "no evident follow-up or inquiries regarding what would happen during a severe rain event."

It says that was true despite multiple meetings of the S&WB's governing board, the City Council and Landrieu's cabinet, which included S&WB representatives. 

Later in the day, former Landrieu Administration First Deputy Mayor Ryan Berni told the Advocate that there simply was no way they could have known about the problems. 

Ryan Berni, who was one of Landrieu’s top advisers, said Tuesday that more could have been done if S&WB officials had been candid with the administration about the state of the system.

“I think you saw in the last year us really run into the fire fixing the problem that we were learning more about,” Berni said. “Clearly there had been a culture of misinformation at the Sewerage & Water Board both in its dealing with the public and with City Hall.”

Does that seem remotely possible? 

Totally validated

Remarkably, the city has had little difficulty identifying some companies willing to suck profits out of a public asset. 

New Orleans could stand to make as much as $55 million upfront and another $76 million over a 40-year term under one of five proposals submitted by companies interested in leasing the Public Belt Railroad.

In fact, all five firms that have expressed interest in taking over the city-owned railroad crossed an initial hurdle this week in the city's nearly two-year effort to reach a long-term deal that could net tens of millions of dollars for the city.

The Public Belt includes 26 miles of track that connect six major rail lines serving the port and industrial facilities.

The companies that responded to the city's request for qualifications include Illinois-based Anacostia Rail Holdings; New York-based MidRail; Colorado-based OmniTrax; and Watco Companies, a Kansas-based transportation firm. Another response came from a joint team of Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming and Oaktree Capital Management, a California global asset management firm.

That's kind of a funny lede.  One would get the impression from the opening paragraph that it's all great news.  It's much more complicated than that. AZ has been on this story for months. Do take a look at that for background, for coverage of the public meetings, and even an interview with the mayor.  There a several issues and concerns involving labor contracts, agreements with warehousing and port services companies, long term development strategies, etc. Jason sums up the fundamental question here.

Probably the biggest question mark with the RFQ is the nature of the current agreement the NOPB has with the Port of New Orleans. Right now, because the structure of the NOPB is designed to solely serve the Port (not necessarily generate a profit), the Port has a $1/year lease agreement with the railroad. If a private entity takes over the NOPB, that agreement will most likely be renegotiated...if the Port even chooses to do business with the new entity.

Whatever way you slice it, this is a proposal to turn a public asset into a profit vehicle for a private third party. So it's really no wonder the city would find at least five bidders ready to leap at the opportunity.  Ryan Berni says the mere fact of this "totally validates" the decision to privatize in the first place.

"It totally validates that there is a lot of interest from major players to invest in this asset and to give the taxpayers a greater return on their investment," said Ryan Berni, a top aide to Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Berni attends Public Belt board meetings as the mayor's representative.

LOL at that "greater return" to taxpayers.  The Landrieu Administration is stuck in the conservative ideology of the early 90s. Everything is better if it's run like, for, and preferably by a private business. The logic validates itself just like it always has.