Voting for Ray “Chocolateville” Nagin
May 2, 2006 by Laura | Trackback URI
The runoff election for New Orleans mayor will be held on May 20th. I live in Jefferson Parish, adjacent to Orleans, so I can’t vote. But if I could vote, I’d vote for Nagin, not Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, his opponent. Do I love Nagin? No. Did I enjoy all those gaffes? No. Do I wish he’d shut up? You betcha. BUT…
With billions of federal taxpayer dollars flowing into New Orleans over the next few years, who would you rather have in charge? A man whose family has well known ties to corruption, whose father was known for his corruption, whose sister skated into office over the backs of dead voters, whose family is known as the Cajun Kennedys, the man who spent nearly a million taxpayer dollars redecorating his office?
Or the man who, upon taking office, kept his promise to clean out Landrieu crony Marc Morial’s corruption?
Shortly after taking office, Nagin launched an anti-corruption campaign within city government, including crackdowns on the city’s Taxicab Bureau and Utilities Department. Media scenes of corrupt officials being led out of City Hall in handcuffs were received with surprised enthusiasm by much of the public. When an investigation into corruption among city vehicle inspection certification workers (locally known as “brake tag inspection”) suggested that corruption was systemic, Nagin fired the entire department workforce. He declared a month-long hiatus on inspections and a moratorium on ticketing for expired tags while an entirely new force of employees were hired and trained for the city’s brake tag inspection stations. Nagin’s actions were viewed with surprise, given the state’s history of preferential political treatment for people with social or family connections. Indeed, when Nagin was asked what should be done about his cousin, who was implicated in the taxi cab bureau scandals, Nagin said “if he’s guilty, arrest him.” Nagin’s cousin was later arrested.
I’ll take Nagin, thanks.
More on the Nagin plan from National Nitwit, America’s #1 source for dubious information and nonsense.
(Caution: not safe for work language)
Thanks for the NSFW warning, and yes, that was pretty funny. But what was funniest about it, is that’s basically (minus the F bombs) what Nagin said last time. A whole lot of people who could have gotten out just ignored him until it was too late.