Might as well get out there and encourage them

This weekend New Orleanians must make dismal choices from among the most unpalatable of combatants in a miserable joyless contest to determine the least objectionable outcome.  And that's just the SuperBowl. The municipal elections are actually worse.

This morning, the streets uptown are a bit more lively than I was expecting. The ladies running my polling location report that business has been "steady."  The weather is nice.  There's a chance turnout will exceed that of the last such exercise, although the bar is set a bit low there.

Turnout in 2010 was just 33 percent, and it may not be any higher this year. The number of early voters was down significantly this year.

Also on the ballot are numerous other races, including for six City Council seats and a heated campaign for sheriff.

On the other hand, I can't recall a citywide election met with quite this degree of apathy. No doubt the candidates themselves are to blame for much of that. The calendar is also a problem. Any January the Saints are in the playoffs can extend the disengaged holiday atmosphere weeks into the new year. And, of course, the #Sneauxpocalypse overshadowed everything during the final week when the campaign should have dominated the news. 

But you shouldn't let this discourage you. The old saw tells us that voting "only encourages" the terrible candidates. But it's important to remember that elections aren't really about them. Elections are about you. Even awful elections, like this one, are your most potent opportunity to at least threaten the ruling classes with the fact that you are paying attention.  For the most part, they hate when you do that. So go out there and make them miserable. 

This is not to say it isn't also fun in the meantime.  District A Candidate Drew Ward appears to be having some sort of problem.

Dear @susanguidry quit stealing my goddamn signs you worthless bitch! Yes #nola my official position: Guidry is a dishonest worthless bitch!
— Drew Ward (@drewward) February 1, 2014

In fairness to Ward, he spent a lot of time working on those signs. Here is a seemingly endless video where he rambles on for a time while describing his homemade sign making process



I kept waiting for him to throw in some "Happy Little Trees"

Anyway, speaking of homemade signs, I ran into perennial anti-candidate Quentin Brown this morning. (He is performing in the sheriff's race this year.)



Go Jags!

I attended a forum with the Sheriff candidates a few weeks ago which included Brown's.. um extemporaneous musings on the issues.  I'm behind on blogging this election but I might still put the details of that up at some point.  It was highly entertaining and a welcome relief from the task of distinguishing from among Quentin's more serious opponents.

We were not as lucky in the mayor's race where Manny Bruno was forced out early under somewhat mysterious circumstances. His name appears on the ballot today but voters are warned that the button next to it does not work.



In any case, it's not too late to join the fun! Here are some links to helpful voting information.

This is a link to the Louisiana Secretary of State's "Voter Portal" where you will find information about your polling location, sample ballots, and results after the polls are closed.

But watch out for this kind of thing.

Polling station @sophie b. wright has been moved to 1111 Milan. pic.twitter.com/LEf0sGHIOU
— New Orleans Advocate (@theadvocateno) February 1, 2014

That's a polling location change from one charter school to another. Except the locations of New Orleans's charter schools are so perpetually in flux that it took them a couple of takes to get the sign right.

The New Orleans League of Women Voters publishes a thorough election guide complete with candidate answers to a standard questionnaire.

Here is a 2014 "Candidate Scorecard" designed by "coalition of local organizations including the Neighborhoods Partnership Network, the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, Puentes New Orleans, The Lens and the Committee for a Better New Orleans."

The endorsements of the Times-Picayune, Gambit, and Louisiana Weekly are available via those links.  Don't let those people tell you how to vote, though. They are all often very wrong about a great many things and this is especially true when it comes to electoral politics.  But read through their opinions anyway if you have the time. It's always helpful to know what point of view the people who tell the daily story of your government's doings are coming from.

And, of course, if all else fails, there's the quick-and-dirty guide to voting in New Orleans.  1) Take a walk around the Garden District or in and around Audubon Place. 2) Observe the names on all the yard signs displayed. 3) Do not vote for any of those people.



In sum, though, your choices today are between some pretty awful people and some other downright evil people.  Good luck to all the voters!

Dull election just got duller

Manny Chevrolet Bruno, fresh off a "campaign event" last night at the Circle Bar, has dropped out of the race for Mayor.

In his withdrawal announcement, Bruno made an oblique reference to a challenge to his candidacy "on trivial grounds that have never been brought up in my three previous campaigns for mayor."

"The circumstances of the challenge are surprising and not a little suspicious," he said, but did not elaborate.

Bruno said he would continue to criticize what he saw as wrongs in the way New Orleans is managed, including "a war on music" - ostensibly a reference to the ongoing campaign to clamp down on loud music across the city.

It's hard to tell when Bruno is joking and when he isn't but that part of his announcement seemed serious. Not sure what the "trivial grounds" would be... or what would be the point of issuing a serious challenge to a non-serious campaign.

Candidates have moneys

Financial reports were released today for candidates in the upcoming elections. The Lens has published the mayoral candidates' reports here. 

Some notable donations:

Bagneris’ report covers Dec. 13 to Dec. 23, but all of his contributions come from Dec. 13, the day he announced, according to the report. Contributors include people and businesses who have recently been at odds with the Landrieu administration, including United Cabs and the Davillier Law Firm, both of which opposed Landrieu’s taxi reform package; Hamp’s Construction, a company Landrieu publicly criticized during a public meeting on the city budget last year; and Waltzer & Wiygul Law Firm, a firm at the center of the city’s legal dispute over control of the Edward Wisner Donation. All contributed $5,000. Treme actor Wendell Pierce also contributed $5,000 to Bagneris.

An interesting side note that raised some eyebrows is that Davillier is Karen Carter Peterson's firm. Peterson is the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party.  This is probably more indicative of the interconnectedness of the political class than it is anything else.  I'd be shocked to learn that Peterson was anything other than supportive of Landrieu in this election.

Return to "troubled times"

On the last day of qualifying, Manny Bruno jumped into the mayor's race after all.

It wouldn't be a mayor's race in New Orleans without Manny Chevrolet.
The entertainer and perennial candidate jumped in at the last minute Friday, qualifying to run against incumbent Mayor Mitch Landrieu, former Civil District Judge Michael Bagneris and NAACP local chapter Predisdent Danatus King.

Now that the horses are lined up, I'm looking forward to seeing how people handicap this race.  Once the fanfare over Bagneris's entry settles, his path to victory is still difficult to see from here. Mitch will have conservative whites sewn up entirely. He's likely to get 80-90 percent of less conservative whites as well. It's especially difficult for me to imagine any of the recent white transplants who get so much media attention being anything other than Landrieu voters... although I'm also wondering how likely they are to vote.

Mitch won't have the same big chunk of the black vote he enjoyed in 2010, but it's hard to imagine him not getting at least enough to put him over the top.  Jesus, that's just five minutes of thinking out loud here and I'm already wondering if this even gets to a runoff.

Same air, new mayor Same rain, new pain*

Ladies aaaand gentleman and various persons of alternative genders, we are pleased to introduce to you your 2009-2010 Mayoral contestants in their first public appearance since getting the band together. We hope you enjoy this permutation of the group since it includes the pop diva stylings of Leslie Jacobs who we aren't sure is too keen on sticking with the project much longer.

Anyway the kids got together with veteran producer Norman Robinson last night to cut their first record which you can check out here. You may have to restart a few tracks more than once to get them to play properly. I blame the DRM. Here's a quick review.

Thematically, The Candidates don't take too many chances. Mostly they banged out industry standards like LEADERSHIP, ACCOUNTABILITY, PUBLIC SAFETY, and TRANSPARENCY although at times it appeared that some of the bandmates were trying to drive the material in a more experimental direction (POT and AMISH PEOPLE). It isn't clear which way these kinds of creative conflicts will eventually pull the group, but it's enough to keep us listening... for now.

Lyrically, The Candidates displayed a tendency toward stream-of-consciousness with, well, mixed (and sometimes confusing) results. For example, here's Leslie Jacobs on CRIME.

"There is no reason New Orleans has the crime rate it does"

Sounds enticingly mysterious but we're not exactly sure what it means. Especially when a few minutes later she busted out this line

"It is very important that we engage our non-profits, our churches, people sitting on the stoops, in partnering with us in crime"

Is Leslie Jacobs really looking for partners in crime? It would be a bit of a departure for her since the rest of her work here seems decidedly un-gangsta.

On the same cut, Nadine Ramsey briefly appears to confuse CRIME with AFGHANISTAN as she suggests what we need is "a long-term commitment". After that, she starts free-styling

"So it has to be that we listen to our neighborhoods. That we take into place with the police department what the neighborhoods are doing to make their lives better."

No idea what that means. We're checking with the record label to find out if either Sarah Palin or Miss Teen South Carolina wrote any of Ramsey's material for her. We're pretty sure she wasn't lip-synching.

Jerry Jacobs (noted sidekick of bandmate John Georges) cultivates an edgy image and adds something to the band's look with his unusual black bowler hat. His riff on CRIME, "Legalize it!" is unabashedly pro-weed. He plays the rebel quite effectively but almost takes it too far in his deadpan antagonism of Robinson. During RACE, Norman tries to lead Jacobs back to familiar territory giving him an opportunity to suggest that more pot smoking will bring blacks and whites together. But Jacobs bucks his producer with a humorless, "If it would not hurt my political image I would laugh with you" The obvious tension there clearly marks Jerry Jacobs as the "bad boy" of the group.

Troy Henry dabbles in Yoko Ono-esque conceptual art as he describes to us his vision of a "5 legged stool" It's a bit strange, given his engineering background that Henry would choose to add two more legs than most folks will tell you are necessary. Perhaps he's favoring stability over efficiency... or maybe it's just poetic license. Anyway, Henry, in somewhat unorthodox verbiage, describes the legs of his stool as 1) "Reengineering of city government" 2)"addressing the crime problem proactively as well as on an enforcement standpoint" 3)"infrastructure" 4) "economic development" 5)"around housing and blight" Because 5 Legged Stool presents some fairly mainstream concepts in a slightly new format, it has potential to be a sleeper hit for the group.

Meanwhile, the label is pushing frontman Mitch Landrieu's new single. The hook, "I know what to do and I know how to do it" is classic Mitch. Its compound structure recalls, perhaps too well, his 2006 hit, "We only get one chance and our margin for error is zero" The trouble there is that fans of the former tune are hoping these days that those words weren't as prophetic as they once sounded. Most of us hope to God at this point that he was wrong on both of those counts since there have been many errors and we would very much like another chance. And if no one wants to believe the old line any more, how much credibility does this new one really have? On the other hand, Mitch proposes to focus on 3 things (crime, jobs, and schools) which at least makes a more sensible stool than Henry's so maybe he's got something left in the tank after all.

Also recycling some of his older material is Manny "Chevrolet" Bruno as he reprises his 2006 anthem, "Let the Amish Come to Remove Our Blight". If you've seen Bruno's act before, there isn't anything new to get excited about but his timing and polish are as reliable as ever. He adds a touch of the soulful philosopher to an otherwise bubble-gum ensemble.

Ed Murray's "Mayor's Office of Education" sounds a bit ominous, particularly among fans of TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY but after a few listens is far more appealing than Leslie Jacobs' cover of EDUCATION which has been criticized for its confounding lack of FAIRNESS.

So there's some promise with this bunch but there also are some major problems. One thing that certainly needs work is The Candidates' sloppy stage show. Leslie Jacobs seems unable to perform without gripping and twisting her own fingers distractingly while Nadine Ramsey sways rhythmlessly in mid solo. And for God's sake, won't somebody do something about Ed Murray's blinking habit? He's never going to connect with an audience that way.

A few of the tracks should have been cut altogether. Georges' "You need a leader who can come up with a plan to find the bright people to lead us" doesn't seem to go anywhere. Troy Henry actually belted out "I believe the children are our future" at one point. Surely Norman should have known better than to let that onto the final mix.

Speaking of Robinson, his work here is also hit-or-miss. He badly misdirects new talent Thomas Lambert who at one point is asked by Norman how he would "tackle transparency" which sounds really difficult. Lambert also is completely unprepared when Norman asks him to riff on Charity Hospital.

Norman chooses to ask The Candidates "How would you generate revenue for the city's economy?" which is a nonsense query they all struggle with (particularly Ramsey, "We need to see whether or not there are any millages or any other revenue sources that are out there that we can pull in" and Lambert, "I'm sure there's enough Federal money laying around here to fix all these problems"). He also puts them through a pair of poorly worded and dubiously relevant questions about tax revenue and bonded indebtedness that just end up making everybody sound bad.

But the absolute lowlight of the entire release is Jonah Bascle. The advance publicity bills Bascle as a "comedian" but he's actually just a smug, unfunny asshole. If he wanted to segue from "accessible streetcars" on St. Charles Ave (The St. Charles line pre-dates ADA and is on the National Register of Historic Places) to "TRANSPARENCY" at City Hall, he could have suggested moving City Hall to a red streetcar. That would have been closer to funny than what he's doing which is basically just hoping people think it's cute that he's running. It's not... unless you're funny. Nadine Ramsey comes accross as an unintelligible moron. At least that's funny. Bascle is just a smug douche whose only shtick is that he thinks it's adorable that he's even running. It isn't, and the gag doesn't work especially when contrasted with Bruno's superior execution of a similar genre.

Maybe without the superfluous Lambert and the cloying frat-prank of Bascle, the group will be able to put out some entertaining work. The Candidates 2010 project will be on tour all month and into Carnival.


*Because this post is musically themed the title comes from a song called People In Honey performed by our favorite NOLA rock band.