Incompetence Pays

I can't imagine what the citizens of New Orleans are thinking, but they reelected America's most incompetent big-city mayor:

Mayor Ray Nagin, whose shoot-from-the-hip style was both praised and scorned after Hurricane Katrina, narrowly won re-election over Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on Saturday in the race to oversee one of the biggest rebuilding projects in U.S. history.

"We are ready to take off. We have citizens around the country who want to come back to the city of New Orleans, and we're going to get them all back," Nagin said in a joyful victory speech that took on the tone of Sunday sermon.

"If we are unified there is nothing we cannot do," he said. "It's time for us to stop the bickering. It's time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It's time for us to be one New Orleans."

With all 442 precincts reporting, Nagin won with 52.3 percent, or 59,460 votes, to Landrieu's 47.7 percent, or 54,131 votes. Results showed he got black votes he needed from scattered residents across the country who voted by fax and absentee ballots, and got a sizable crossover vote from white districts.

I wonder how many of those scattered residents will ever return to New Orleans?

UPDATE: From Powerline:

Having witnessed Marion Barry repeatedly elected mayor of Washington, D.C., I can't say I'm surprised at Nagin's success. Re-electing an unsuccessful or disgraced mayor apparently can become a source of civic pride, particularly when the racial politics are right.

UPDATE 2: From Instapundit:

I predict substantially less support for New Orleans reconstruction. Betweeen the Louisiana delegation's absurd overreaching in demanding a huge amount of pork-laden funding, and this, they've managed to squander a lot of the sympathy that was present in in September. Louisiana's political class isn't just greedy -- it's greedy and stupid. Louisiana will pay the price. And probably complain of unfairness when it does.

It appears that the people of New Orleans are stuck on stupid.