This is just too good. ;->

Will Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin try to become Ray “Chocolate State” Nagin? Wouldn’t that be a hoot??? Only in the state stuck on stupid…

From Jeff Crouere:

New Orleans Nagin Speech Prelude For Louisiana Governor Run

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is hopeless, after five unproductive years in office; there are few options to turn the city’s fortunes around in the final three, things are too foregone. It is time for everyone to just start looking ahead, hoping to minimize the damage and praying that the next Mayor has something to salvage.

In the midst of a crime wave, in which six people were killed in four days, it was announced that the city will hire a PR firm for $100,000 to distribute the recovery message to New Orleans residents living at home and those who are still displaced. Of course, the most positive thing that could be announced is that Nagin is retiring, but that will not happen. Again, this is a superfluous hire, just like the Crime Czar and the Recovery Czar. New Orleans is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants who are doing repetitive work, money that should be going into infrastructure improvements or flood protection. Why does the city need a public relations firm when it has a Communications Director? Why does it need a Crime czar when it has a Police Chief? Why does it need a Recovery Czar when it has a Mayor?

Ideally, Nagin would address such questions at his annual “State of the City” address, which will be given tonight to a crowd of supporters and members of the media. Unfortunately, the speech will be void of real information and filled with the usual PR spin, loaded with fake optimism and phony commitment.

Nagin is not committed to the recovery of New Orleans, he is committed to himself. The latest rumor running around political circles is that Nagin will run for Governor of Louisiana this fall. What a joke! Is there anyone more unqualified, more incapable than Ray Nagin? Folks, if you thought that Kathleen Blanco was bad, just wait till Ray Nagin takes over as Governor. He’ll make Blanco look like Margaret Thatcher.

Yet, if Nagin does run, it will not be about winning, for he knows he cannot win, it will be about expanding his support base and energizing the African American vote this fall. Nagin is upset at Bobby Jindal for his lack of support in the Mayor’s race, so by running against him, a run-off could be forced. If Nagin makes the run-off against Jindal, it will be a slam dunk for the congressman, but if Jindal is forced into a run-off with another candidate, it could spell trouble for the frontrunner.

A recent poll showed that only 16% of the voters in the metropolitan New Orleans area approved of the lame job that Nagin is doing as Mayor. Most probably, his approval rating throughout the state is not much better.

The real reason he might run is that Nagin hopes to use the race to launch his true campaign to become a national civil rights leader. This ego-driven goal is why Nagin can’t stay in the city long enough to get anything accomplished. It is why he earned the nickname Na-gone. Last week, he was at a FEMA seminar, before that it was a global warming conference, before that it was Philadelphia or somewhere else, creating controversy and drawing media attention.

Nagin is for anything that will take him away from doing his job. So a gubernatorial campaign is perfect, he will have to travel all over the state and again will be distracted from his true mission, which is the recovery of the Crescent City.

If Nagin runs for Governor, the cameras will roll, feeding the Mayor’s healthy ego. The more media attention Nagin creates the less real work that is accomplished in New Orleans. A race for Governor will do nothing to help New Orleans, but it will satisfy the personal and political ambitions of Mayor Nagin.

It is the price the city has to pay for electing him as Mayor twice, proving once again that elections do matter.