Commentary: Unimaginative campaigns fail to ignite voters' passions

New Orleans CityBusiness, Oct 8, 2007 by Terry O'Connor

While wondering if our gubernatorial race will ever heat up and why the City Council at-large race has been so low key, it hit me: We're bored by campaigns centered around personality attacks. Post- Katrina, such campaigns are not gaining any traction.

Voters want a proven track record of accomplishment or at least a specified vision of leadership. We're tired of mudslinging campaigns that fail to outline how this sluggish recovery would be moved along any better under a specific candidate's tutelage.

Take for example, independent gubernatorial candidate John Georges claiming voters should not hire Bobby Jindal as governor because he avoids the job interview. Good line. Jindal should be forced into more debates.

Georges said voters should be wary of Jindal because he did not show up for the New Orleans debate Monday night and has only met his opponents once in debate.

"When someone applies for a job and doesn't show up for the interview, you don't give him the job," Georges said to applause from the live audience at the televised University of New Orleans debate.

Jindal's challengers could engage his campaign by taking on his positions, not his name change or his religion. And acting as if he ruined the state health care system isn't credible. Effective attacks have to be believable -- not simply revisionist rhetoric.

But candidates whining about too few debates won't force Jindal's hand. They can only gain leverage by picking apart his political platform or showing a vision people can rally behind regarding the recovery. Jindal would then be forced to respond.

Yet no one has assailed his policies in a way that sticks in the voter's minds. No one has tried with any consistency to truly detail how their leadership would surpass the subpar governance we've endured post-Katrina. So Jindal appears to be a lock for governor, Louisiana's penchant for political surprises notwithstanding.

Georges even blamed Rep. Jindal for the shortfall in The Road Home program because he went along with a federal hurricane recovery plan lopsided in favor of Mississippi.

"The Road Home was not fully funded because Washington didn't fund it," Georges said. "Who's in Washington? Bobby Jindal. I say don't come home, Mr. Jindal, until you get the money."

Georges, whose family owned grocery wholesale business has increased from 60 to 600 employees, possesses impressive business credentials. But his claims, and those of other challengers, have so far failed to even dent Jindal's huge lead in the polls.

Time is running short for our gubernatorial race to tighten. We will vote in our next governor Oct. 20, barring some major surprise.

As for the shadowy City Council campaign, it's hard to know if anyone has really made a move in the herd running for the at-large seat. Most disappointingly, none of the candidates has really imprinted a message of recovery leadership. The one who does best at detailing recovery plans down the stretch deserves to be elected.

Road Home payouts

The original $7.5-billion budget for the already underfunded Road Home program no longer includes the $1.2 billion in Hazard Mitigation Grant Program money because the Federal Emergency Management Agency still refuses to release the money for deserving homeowners trying to rebuild shattered lives. This is a patently ridiculous example of the blindingly bureaucratic federal processes hogtying the recovery.

Let's break down homeowner eligibility for FEMA by the title of its own making: Hazard Mitigation Grant Program:

* Hazard. Homes flooded out by Hurricane Katrina are hazardous. Check.

* Mitigation. Moldering homes require mitigation or they become even nastier eyesores. Check.

* Grant. Federal money allocated to FEMA to be given to homeowners. Check.

* Program. A system of distribution to eligible recipients such as The Road Home. Check.

FEMA's performance of its own duties, responsibilities and obligations in this instance can best be defined by two words: No check.

The good news is $6.8 billion will be in the hands of deserving homeowners by the end of the year. But it could have been $8 billion if FEMA had released the funds obviously earmarked for this purpose.

Last word

Is anyone else baffled as to why the Times-Picayune makes finding the morning business section a "Where's Waldo?" exercise every morning? As a daily reader, this is frustrating to me and about every businessperson I've talked to about it. Dummy up, TP, and start dummying the section in the same place every day, please.