Saturday, May 20, 2006

I love Dawn Brown

Yes, the WWL meteorologist -- that Dawn Brown.

I turned on the WDSU radio broadcast on the way home after an evening out to dinner to listen for election results. I was shattered after hearing Ray Nagin tell me that I had "visited the red light district" by voting for the other guy.

I don't think I felt more disappointed to hear that George W. Bush had won stolen his re-election re-selection.

This is personal.

So when I finally got home, I'd already heard all of the meaningless and obligatory "time to come together" platitudes by everyone from the Nagin and Landrieu camps.

I was feeling thoroughly defeated.

Then, I turned on WWL, and there was Dawn Brown, with that great big smile and slightly goofy delivery, talking about something else -- the weather. I have a fondness for goofy girls -- the ones who might be characters in a Dr. Seuss book. Sorry Dawn -- don't take that in the wrong way -- what I mean is that I prefer the goofy humanity in your delivery to, for example, the smarmy professionalism of Dan Milham who's been perfecting the same lines for 150 years.

The point is, I did so need to see that happy smiling face when, expecting Mitch Landrieu to win, my plan was to post the following photo Sunday morning:



I went out to New Orleans East Saturday afternoon and stopped at a polling place to find out what people were thinking as they stood in the voting booths. I didn't hear anything substantive. It was all about how they felt sorry for the mayor. No one could have handled a crisis of the scale of Hurricane Katrina. Nagin had made mistakes, sure, yada yada yada, but Landrieu represented a corrupt political dynasty from the past. Oh ... no ... they couldn't actually name any specific incident, but it just must be true that a family that's so politically active is corrupt.

Maybe, subconsciously, they were really remembering Marc Morial.

Imagine that -- that blacks would actually think that the Landrieu family hasn't fairly represented the interests of black New Orleanians over the years -- or that the Landrieus have been too liberal for God's sake? Too entrenched with the Democratic party machine?

Irony of ironies.

Well, they can thank the Republican party smear machine for creating that impression with ads, signs, and mailers like these:









So what, exactly, is the GNOR?



When they were in a losing position, when their candidate was down, the Republican smear machine attacked Mitch's character with insinuation, and attacked the family name.

I was starting to think yesterday that people who didn't vote for Mitch would be surprised by how much good he would do for the city as mayor.

Now I'm thinking that people will be surprised by how lousy Nagin will be as a second-term mayor.

Expect more government by crisis, no vision, no planning, no follow through, no solutions. In particular, I suspect that there are a lot of blacks in New Orleans East who will regret their vote. They might rebuild, once the insurance money comes in, once the federal grants start coming in, if Nagin stays on top of the Corps levee improvements, if Nagin gets the infrastructure fixed, if the city doesn't go bankrupt, but will they have schools and businesses? Now, people are doing their grocery shopping Uptown. Will New Orleans East ever reach the population density necessary to support businesses with Nagin's leadership?

I doubt it. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic. It's probably time to hang it up.

One last thought, was Nagin mimicking Kimberly Williamson Butler by comparing himself to Gandhi when he delivered his victory speech?

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. And then you win.

I think I'll be paying more attention to the weather forecast now.

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11 Comments:

At 5/21/2006 08:01:00 AM, Blogger Steve said...

*SIGH* You know, I was truly "downhearted" this morning; I dont think I have ever (recently)been really, and truly more dissapointed as when I opened up my copy of the Charlotte Observer this morning and saw that Nagin had won. I frankly dont understand HOW he won, after all the insane remarks and antics of the past 9 months, but there you have it.

All I can say is, I hope he truly has the vision and drive to make New Orleans a better place for EVERYONE- not just the people he thinks should be living there-& that he actually does live up to the needs of his people.I suppose only time will tell.

Not to be a smart ass Schroeder, but maybe you need to take a look at those tin, flat bottom fishing boats theyve got on sale at bass for a couple hundred dollars....Just in case. it's gonna be a looooong summer.

 
At 5/21/2006 08:36:00 AM, Blogger djpoptart said...

come to the love-up tonight. maybe it will help. your energy will be welcome.

http://sophie.tulane.edu/katrinawarriors

 
At 5/21/2006 09:36:00 AM, Blogger naltikriti said...

While I'm sorry Mitch Landrieu didn't win, I can't say I'm as pessimistic about Nagin. I don't think he's as ineffective or negative as you say. At the same time, I'd like to get GNOR out of politics altogether.

 
At 5/21/2006 12:56:00 PM, Blogger bayoustjohndavid said...

Near proof that the National GOP was involved. Last night Jeff Crouere said that the White House told the GNOR that Nagin was their man. Unfortunately he said it on TV and I can't find it in print or online. Analysts sometimes get their facts wrong, but I think that Couere would know a thing or two about GNOR--he was listed as treasurer when the organization was first started and his BayouBias colleague Mike Bayham is still on its board of directors.

 
At 5/21/2006 05:04:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

NOLA Blogger Meeting this coming Friday @ 6pm. My house. 1115 Thalia. I will have some booze. Bring what you want.

- humidhaney

 
At 5/22/2006 06:28:00 PM, Blogger BadTux said...

In the end, Landrieu lost because he was too careful. He never adequately explained to the majority of New Orleans' citizens the exact details of how he could perform better than Ray Nagin. Nagin's poor performance during Katrina and afterwards is too easy to excuse -- no resources, bankrupt city, yada yada. How would Landrieu do better? Landrieu's answer, apparently, was that he'd use his political savvy to get more money out of Washington. BLEEEP! Wrong answer. I think, instinctively, a lot of New Orleanians are looking for a Huey Long -- someone willing to break the mold of what constitutes a politician, someone willing to put government back to being of the people, by the people, for the people, rather than as a tool for steering government contracts to entrenched contractors. There was, and is, an astounding amount of volunteer labor, materials, and money willing to flow into New Orleans. New Orleans still has a lot of goodwill outside of the city from people who saw the suffering and want to do something about it. Both Landrieu and Nagin utterly ignored this goodwill, other than to urge people to call their Congressmen.

The fact of the matter is that a massive cleanup could have happened in New Orleans months ago. Reconstruction of the housing projects to create safe housing for people to use to return to New Orleans could have started months ago. A lot of things could have started happening in New Orleans months ago, without a single dime of federal money. But Nagin with his businessman's suspicion of volunteerism turned all these resources away, and Landriew gave no indication that he was willing to embrace a new vision for New Orleans either, basically running as Nagin Lite, running as "I can do the same thing as Nagin but more competently."

In the end, given a choice between Nagin and Nagin Lite, the majority of New Orleanians decided to go with the real thing. New Orleans needed a Huey Long. As far as what the majority could tell, what they got, no matter who they voted for, was a T. Semmes Walmsley -- a product of machine politics, careful to a fault, with no outstanding characteristics to differentiate him from any other product of machine politics.

In short, Landrieu lost for the same reason as Kerry -- he was too careful, too restrained, too much a product of politics as usual, to realize that these are extreme times that need unorthodox methods in order to gain people's attention and win.

-BT

 
At 5/22/2006 08:33:00 PM, Blogger Schroeder said...

Nagin lite ey? I think you're on to something there. Still ... it kills me to think of the difference a more politically savvy mayor could do for the city.

 
At 9/23/2006 01:24:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like Dawn Brown too. A whole lot.

 
At 1/14/2007 04:25:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I LOVE Dawn Brown!!! She is so hot!!!

 
At 1/15/2007 09:47:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

love the weather forcast dawn gives its great thank dawn keep up the good ork

 
At 1/18/2007 09:14:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i watch dawn on channel 4 news because she is one heck of a meterologist and she is very beautiful lady i like the hair cut

 

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