Nagin says win would send racial message

NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor C. Ray Nagin says a victory in tomorrow's election will send a message on race that "will echo throughout America."
"This election will say in spite of American prejudice, I was able to attract votes from all races and classes and move forward with the process of healing," said Mr. Nagin, who has hinted that whites locally and nationally are working to unseat him from the post, which blacks have held for nearly 30 years.
Mr. Nagin questions the source of "$6 million" that opponent Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu has raised, hinting at an effort to return the city to the "good-old-boy system," and says Hurricane Katrina exposed the soft underbelly of race and class in America.
"I have said this before publicly that if this had been South Beach Miami or Orange County, I'll bet you a dollar that the response would have been different," said Mr. Nagin, who was elected in 2002 with 85 percent of the white vote.
Mr. Landrieu, whose father was the city's last white mayor, says this election provides an opportunity to deal with race and class in a unique way nationally.
He said the tightly contested runoff election will turn on whether "African-Americans [will] vote for white politicians and will whites vote for black ones."
"You can't win anymore with an all-black vote or an all-white vote," Mr. Landrieu said.
Voters here, regardless of whom they support, agree that there are a lot of lessons to be learned about race, class and politics from the aftermath of Katrina.
Morris Reid, Democratic political analyst and former adviser to the Clinton administration, said the real story is whether black New Orleanians will stand up and take advantage of the voting rights that their parents and grandparents fought and, in some cases, died to get.

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