60-40 VISION

Big Sleazy Sobers Up: C. Ray Nagin takes New Orleans (Rod Dreher, July 31, 2002, National Review)

It's the hottest time of the year in New Orleans, but the weather can't match the sizzle surrounding Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who has knocked this famously easygoing city off its barstool and has become an overnight folk hero for his efforts.

On July 22, not yet three months into his administration, the new mayor ordered a lightning raid on the city's Taxicab Bureau, arresting more than 80 employees and cabbies (including his own cousin) on bribery and related charges, and shutting the agency down. Its head was led out of city hall in handcuffs. When Lilliam Regan, the director of the city agency that oversees the Taxicab Bureau, called a press conference that afternoon to defend her workers, Nagin's men walked in front of the TV cameras, told Regan to pack up her things and get out of city hall. She was fired, and later arrested.

Calling his anti-corruption crusade "a battle for the heart and soul of New Orleans," Nagin, 45, vows that this is just the first step in what will be a sustained effort to rid municipal government of graft and sleaze. Nagin, a Democrat and former top executive of a local cable company, made his first-ever bid for elected office this year, conducting a largely self-financed campaign that emphasized economic development, and promised voters a new style of city governance. [...]

But many players in the city's business and legal community are still laying low, waiting to see what Nagin's next move is before they openly declare for him. He faces powerful institutional enemies who could outwit and outlast him, and make life hell for his supporters. "It's like when the Berlin Wall started to fall, and only a few people crawled on top to look over," says a lawyer. "Everybody else is hanging back for now to see if the East German border guards shoot them."

Behind the dramatic headlines lies a fascinating, and indeed hopeful, sign of bedrock political change: the emergence of the black middle class as a distinct power player in municipal politics. New Orleans is a majority-black city, with African-Americans making up 64 percent of the electorate. Nagin was elected with 58 percent of the total vote in the April runoff, which amounted to about 80 percent of the white vote, and 44 percent of the black vote.

"If you look at the areas where Nagin did very well in the black community, it was in those middle-class areas," says Joe Walker, the mayor's pollster. "The black middle class has been developing for some time. This is probably the first time where they've been a principal force in the election of candidates."

"This has changed the dynamics of race in the city," says Maginnis. "Morial relied on the black lower class for votes and support. There never has been enough of a black middle class to make a difference in city politics. They're more conservative and business-friendly, and when you put them together with the whites who share their values, come pretty close to being the majority of the city."

Mayor Nagin, who crossed party lines to endorse Bobby Jindal for governor last week, should be one of Karl Rove's top projects.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2003 5:42 PM