This Catholic blogger...says abortion foes, right wing support for Nagin

played a huge role in Nagin's win. I have not paid much attention to the posts here, but this caught my eye. The blogger is saying that prominent religious people in the Republican party stepped in for Nagin.

I don't know how much is true.

http://catholicanalysis.blogspot.com/2006/05/explaining-new-orleans-election.html

"Senator Mary Landrieu sure makes them similar to the Kennedys in a way that I and many of my readers will find highly distasteful: she is a pro-abortion Catholic (Senator Mary Landrieu has a 43% pro-abortion NARAL rating; see link). In fact, not too long ago, the Archbishop of New Orleans made it a point to boycott the granting of an honorary degree to the Landrieu family as a whole by the local, of course liberal, Jesuit university because of this Kennedyesque resemblance on the abortion issue. Similarly, a prior Archbishop of New Orleans had expressed the view that no Catholic should vote for Mary Landrieu when she first ran for the Senate due to her views on abortion."

...."But, most crucially in my opinion, was that Nagin's reelection would have been absolutely impossible without the support of many conservative, Republican white voters. In fact, I participated regularly in a web forum during the campaign in which many aspects of the campaign were debated. I made it a point to explain why Nagin should be reelected. On that web forum, I called the election for Nagin after another forum participant (much more astute than the radio experts) posted the results from some white precincts: Nagin was getting 20% or more of the white vote!

In the primary election that preceded the final runoff between Nagin and Mitch Landrieu, Nagin had received only about 6% of the white vote. Conservative, Republican whites swung to Nagin and handed him the election.

Why? A prominent white Republican candidate, Rob Couhig, who had lost in the primary election (and thus did not make the runoff election) showed great courage and daring by crossing the traditional color line and endorsing Nagin on the airwaves. A group of Republican activists, the Greater New Orleans Republicans, also endorsed and campaigned actively for Nagin."

That is what I am trying to figure out here.

I heard a woman newscaster on CNN today even say that...that conservative Republicans helped him win. It was on one of the afternoon news,if you call it that, shows. She was in NO at the time interviewed via satellite.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=7096

"So, with Boulet, Couhig and an influential group of GOP activists, the Greater New Orleans Republicans, now throwing their support behind Nagin, the Mayor’s goal of getting 20% of the white vote is in reach.

The Republicans supported him.