Mitch's Mock Martyrdom

Mitch Landrieu actually expects us to believe that he is making a personal sacrifice and coming home to New Orleans to serve in a time of crisis, by offering himself up as a mayoral candidate. What a load of $#!&. First of all, Landrieu is clearly in a quixotic stupor thinking that New Orleanians will welcome him like a small town hero welcomed home after battle. From my conversations with liberals and conservatives, a large number of New Orleanians are tired of Landrieus. Second, Mitch made a comment that, while this is a "bad political decision" to take a step down from a statewide position to a local, mayoral position, he's doing it out of his love for his hometown. Yeah. He and his family are politically savvy and connected enough to know that Louisiana has turned in large part, yes, it's a majority now, conservative. A majority of all statewide offices are Republican. Mitch sees the writing on the electoral wall and knows that it will be a while before LA turns back to supporting statewide Democrats. Therefore, he knows that he wouldn't be elected to a statewide office again any time in the near future. He thus thinks that he can marinate in New Orleans for a while, give a few more buddies some kick backs and wait until people aren't so sick of Democrats/Landrieus again. Third, he's kidding himself if he thinks that a majority of the Democrat electorate in New Orleans will vote for him. In case he hasn't noticed, a majority of New Orleans' voters will be voting for one of several other people in the race who, to borrow Hermain Cain's phrase, have different color eyes than Mitch. Sorry, that's just the reality of the situation. I didn't make it that way.

It will be an interesting race. I intend to follow it closely and to help one of the candidates who I think will make the best decisions for New Orleans, rather than decisions that line his own pockets and that of his family and friends. I'd love to hear from you about who you think would be best, and why. However, don't respond if your response consists of nothing more than "I like so-and-so best because of his/her passion for such-and-such" or "so-and-so really believes in such-and-such" issue. We're not dealing in the unicorns and rainbows world of passions and feelings. We need real leaders with real solutions to real-world problems.