Photo by Glynn Wilson

Mayor Ray Nagin looks out with renewed confidence at a chearing crowd Saturday night, minutes after Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu condeded defeat in the runoff election.

by Glynn Wilson

NEW ORLEANS – Ray Nagin earned the right to be the mayor here Saturday night by fighting and winning a close re-election bid in this city still suffering mightily from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.

Nagin’s opponent in the runoff election, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who differed little on the issues, conceded defeat a little after 10 p.m. and called for unity to rebuild New Orleans.

“We as a people have got to come together so we can speak with one voice and one purpose,” he said. “Join with me in supporting Mayor Nagin.”

Nagin thanked God first for his victory to amens from the jubilent crowd, then he went on to thank President George W. Bush for he financial support from Washington and even Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, whose role in the slow response to Katrina has also been criticized for months.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Mayor Ray Nagin promises to speed up the clean up and recovery of New Orleans.

“We are ready to take off,” Nagin said with an air of renewed confidence. “We have citizens around the country who want to come back, and we’re going to get them all back.”

“It’s time for us to stop the bickering,” he said. “It’s time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It’s time for us to be one New Orleans.”

Nagin won with 52.3 percent of the vote, or 59,460 votes, to Landrieu’s 47.7 percent, or 54,131 votes, according to the Associated Press. The vote was split along racial lines. But Nagin garnered enough crossover in predominantly white districts and a slim majority of absentee and fax votes – cast by evacuees scattered around the country – to win the day.

Nagin’s second term will begin one day before the June 1 beginning of hurricane season 2006, in a city still trying to clean up pile after pile of mold-infested rubble and the rotting carcuses of flooded homes.

Nagin did not apologize for his sometimes colorful language that has drawn criticism from some quarters and has been replayed on the national cable news for months, including his tearful plea on the radio for the federal government to “get off their asses and do something” only a week after the flood, and his now-famous remark that God intended New Orleans to be a “chocolate” city.

“You’re not going to get a typical Ray Nagin speech,” he told a chearing crowd at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street. ” I’m not going to get into trouble tonight, trust me.”

by Glynn Wilson

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Even voters at the monthly tree-huggers happy hour were split on whether Nagin or Landrieu should win the mayors race…

NEW ORLEANS – Voters are coming here from all over the country to vote today and either reelect a mayor who went through the trauma of Hurricane Katrina or a new leader to take the city through the next hurricane season and into an uncertain future.

Mayor Ray Nagin, the former independent business candidate who was to lead New Orleans away from its corrupt past, now must convince voters that the abysmal response to Katrina was Bush’s fault, not his.

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu needs only to convince a majority of voters that he is the best leader to help determine the course of one of the largest reconstruction projects in U.S. history.

Whoever emerges from the vote today with a majority will begin a four-year term just one day before hurricane season begins June 1.

Landrieu, who would become the city’s first white mayor in 28 years if elected, told the Associated Press on Friday that the election was too close to call.

“It’s hard to know,” he said. “It’s that close.”

While Nagin, whose image has changed from the safe candidate to someone whose outspokenness can sometimes get him into trouble, said he is putting together a coalition of blacks and conservative whites.

“We’re going to have a coalition of African-American voters and conservative voters that will blow people’s minds,” he said.