Forman Endorses Landrieu

Ron Forman, the third-place finisher in the New Orleans mayor's race, has endorsed his old friend and second-place finisher Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu for the May 20 runoff with incumbent Ray Nagin.

Now all eyes are on the cash that once backed Forman. Most of it seems headed to Landrieu, as well.

Perhaps more important is whether Forman can lure to Landrieu the corporate powerbrokers who in 2002 bankrolled Nagin, then a businessman touting his status as a political outsider, and who defected en masse to both Landrieu and Forman in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

While each challenger amassed more than $2 million in the two months leading to last week's election, Nagin picked up less than $200,000 during the same period, according to campaign finance reports. The mayor's camp had raked in $1.3 million before Katrina.

Each camp's strategy appears to be clear. Landrieu will bang the drum of new leadership. Nagin will say Landrieu isn't new leadership. In fact, he's just part of the old guard that Nagin displaced. This old guard includes Landrieu's father and the Morial family who counts among it two former mayors: Dutch and Dutch's son Marc.

The mayor, however, appeared to rev up his runoff rhetoric Monday, taking an obvious dig at the Landrieu political tradition; Landrieu's sister, Mary, is a U.S. senator, and his father, Moon, was mayor of New Orleans. Speaking on WWL radio's "Garland Robinette Show," Nagin asked whether New Orleans residents would want to deal with a "political dynasty" where you would have to "kiss the ring to get things done."

Nagin's own words will haunt him as the runoff campaign begins. Many of the people who supported Forman voted for Nagin four years ago. Nagin, who is black, is more conservative politically -- he was a registered Republican for most of his life before switching to run for mayor -- and won every white-majority precinct en route to winning the 2002 race. Landrieu is white and more liberal, and his family has a history of drawing black voters to their side.

John Koerner, another venture capitalist who once supported Nagin and then moved to the Forman camp, said he's leaning toward Landrieu, largely because he's still bothered by Nagin's "chocolate" city address on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"I love Ray Nagin, but I'm probably leaning toward Mitch because of Ray's divisive statements," Koerner said. "That was so unnecessary. And he had my vote locked up before that."

In the end, the money may stay home. And so may a lot of conservative voters (re: mostly white in New Orleans). They feel betrayed by Nagin, who inexplicably played the race card to an audience who had never been very fond of him. And the conservatives -- and some moderates -- do not trust anyone in the Landrieu dynasty.

The result could be four more years of Ray Nagin. Good, bad or otherwise.