Where the mayoral race is right now

I think Troy Henry has an opportunity to make a run at it but he also appears to be well on his way toward blowing that opportunity. I don't think it's a bad idea for him to complain about the way the local media covers the horse race angle first and actual issues and platforms something like... well never, really. E has a really good summary of the week's events up right now where he addresses Henry's argument this way.

I agree that the media tends to fixate on the theatrics of the election - the horse race itself - and not on positions and values of candidates relative to the problems the city faces. I agree that this hurts African American candidates and the African American population, but it also hurts everyone in this city. The public should know who their choices are and what differentiates them from one another. Mitch Landrieu should be forced to really prove he knows "what to do and how to do it" by being asked to provide some basic detail about what it is he's going to do and how it is he plans to do it.

But in the end, it's kind of hard not to say 'tough sh-t.' That is how the media works.

My big complaint about this year's election coverage is that it really has been inside baseball all-around. I see reporters and commentators working harder at establishing their bona-fides than they are at educating and engaging the public. Maybe it is hard not to say "tough shit", but in some cases I really have to wonder. At the end of Henry's press conference Wednesday, there was this remarkable exchange between Henry and one of the reporters in attendance (I'm sorry I have no idea who she was. I blame Kevin Allman's shoddy iphone work.)

Henry: What I'm here telling you is that it's important that we have a fair election, that everybody understands that every candidate here has the opportunity to succeed or not succeed

Reporter: But, Troy, isn't that your responsibility to convey that message regardless of what anyone says I mean it's just part of the game.

Now we know that Henry was pulling a disingenuous stunt by staging this press conference in the first place, but the answer to the very serious question of whether or not the press is carrying out its responsibility to the public record in the course of a major city-wide election cannot possibly be, "it's just part of the game." When this is the sort of the thing our reporters willingly own up to, one wonders if possibly the Mayor had a point when he threatened to take local news directors into the parking lot so he could cold-cock them. But, you know, Tough shit, I guess.

Anyway, back to Henry. It's also not a bad idea for him to attempt to play the victim a bit while making his argument. It's obviously his strategy here to rally some sort of racial-indignation vote out of what's left in play at this point. The prevailing argument right now is that this is a desperate tactic by a Henry campaign running low on funds and in the polls. But there's still an opportunity there, especially if my horribly flawed model of ignoring all current polling data and just counting 2006 primary votes is anywhere close to reliable. In the past week I have been admonished by more serious and professional observers for even entertaining this flawed methodology but, like I keep reminding everyone, I am neither professional nor serious. I'm just some dude who likes to guess so I can get away with being this stupid.

According to the flawed counting method, there are (or were) potentially close to 30,000 votes out there that might have moved to a candidate like Henry given the right sort of prompting. I believe Henry is trying to move those votes now. What I am less and less convinced of, however, is that he actually can move them. One problem is that he's not nearly as glib or, well, as charming as Nagin has always been while playing victim. I'm also not sure what to do with the fact that Nagin is now openly trying to help him out a bit. On the one hand, Henry could use some help from a master like Nagin. On the other hand, how much "help" is Ray Nagin at this stage of his political career?

Another problem Henry has is that he's got one month to make a leap from the back of the pack and into the runoff. There are examples of relatively unknown candidates catching late lightning in a bottle and pulling something like this off. Two that come to mind are Buddy Roemer's 1987 Gubernatorial run and Ray Nagin's 2002 race for Mayor. The trouble there is that in each of those cases, the candidates ran to the front of the pack by becoming last-minute media darlings. In each case (especially in Nagin's case) the media consolidated around the candidate and practically foisted him upon the electorate in the closing weeks of the campaign. Given Troy Henry's poor performance at charming the kids Wednesday afternoon, it's difficult to foresee something like that happening for him this time around. Tough shit, I guess. It's just part of the game.