I am very glad that Ray Nagin won reelection as New Orleans's mayor, and for a few reasons. Was he incompetent in preparing for, and responding to, Katrina? Certainly. But I can find no reason to believe that any other local politician would have been any less so. The primary reason I'm glad that Nagin won is that he is more pro-business than his competator, who is an old-fashioned liberal.
The secondary reason that I'm glad Nagin won is that his victory adds yet more proof that white Americans generally put "race" as a distant consideration, or a non-consideration. Had Nagin lost, the race mongers would have painted his defeat as resulting from a conspiracy to manage the coastal disaster preparation, response, and recovery so as to disproportionately harm and chase away blacks, and then to prevent them from voting. Nagin's victory won't conversely inspire them to admit that they overstated white America's supposed race-obsession, but it will mean a bit less fuel for their own race-obsession.
I hope that republicans now see that black free market candidates provide the best mechanism for defeating the race-based pro-democratic voting block: they lose no free market white voters, and they attract some blacks from the voting block. Which blacks do black conservatives attract? I hypothesize two sorts. One, blacks who simply want to vote for a black person. Two, blacks who are interested in free market policies, but who are mistrustful of republicans.
2 comments:
So you think Nagin is the most politically expedient candidate, not necessarily the better candidate? Because he is in black face (ala Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Uncle Thomas, etc.) he will be more acceptable to blacks.
Nagin is a democrat in name only. Hopefully he will work to insure that refugees from New Orleans are not screwed out of their land. Only time will tell.
If both candidates were white (or black), I would have prefered Nagin, because he seems more interested in free market policies than the other guy. I do believe that he mishandled everything regarding Katrina, but so did just about every resident -- and every official -- of New Orleans. His challanger's own dad did no better as mayor in this regard, and simply was lucky not to have had a hurricane of Katrina's force expose him.
One of the major impediments to the US having more free market policies is that 12% of the population votes 90% democrat, due partly to blacks supporting "control economy" policies, and partly due "blacks" mistrusting republicans. Some substantial portion of the 90% black voting block would vote republican if the republicans convinced them that they are not racist. Since republicans in 2006 truly are not racist, and as a result republican voters will not withhold their votes from a black free market candidate, and since black republican candidates help demonstrate that republicans are not racist, black republican candidates are especially helpful to the republicans.
And to the extent that republicans stick to their free market, small government principals, their policies are better for everyone -- including blacks -- and for the same reasons.
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