NEW ORLEANS — Most of this city is still a river of rubble, with basic services barely functioning and its population slashed in half. But when voters go to the polls Saturday to cast their ballots for mayor, an underlying factor influencing their choice for the person who will help them retreat or return, rebuild or raze, is another R-word.
"It's about race," said Elliott Stonecipher, an independent pollster based in Shreveport, La.
Which neighborhoods will be allowed to rebuild, who is able to return to the city, even the logistics of voting in the elections for mayor and other municipal offices are being viewed through a prism of color and class, Stonecipher and other analysts agree.
Incumbent Mayor C. Ray Nagin faces an unprecedented 22 challengers. Local polls show Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and Audubon Nature Institute Chief Executive Ron Forman as Nagin's strongest contenders.
If no one gets more than half the votes, a runoff will be held May 20 for the top two vote-getters.
"It's who [voters] trust the most, racial identification and who they think is the strongest leader," said Susan E. Howell, a political science professor at the University of New Orleans.
Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans' population was approximately 450,000, about 70% of them black. For almost three decades, the city's mayors have been black. But of the nearly 200,000 residents who have returned since the storm, most are white.
Many African Americans have decided to stay in other parts of Louisiana and in different states. Others want to return but lack the resources -- and have nothing to return to.
Many of the neighborhoods hardest hit by Katrina were mostly black. Revisions that Nagin made to the recommendations of his Bring Back New Orleans Commission -- the group framing the debate over reconstruction -- allowed rebuilding in all parts of the city.
But many devastated neighborhoods lie in areas vulnerable to future flooding.
And many residents are fretting over the prospective cost of raising the first floors of their homes 1 to 3 feet before rebuilding, as being advised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Some candidates have talked about shrinking the city's footprint, or reducing the areas within the city where homes can be built. They argue that the city can neither justify nor afford to operate as though it still had its pre-Katrina population. That suggestion also has taken on racial overtones.
