WWLTV

08:59 PM CDT on Saturday, May 3, 2008 Doug Simpson / Associated Press Writer BATON ROUGE, La. — New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was chosen Saturday as a superdelegate to the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating convention. The Louisiana Democratic Party’s central committee picked Nagin over four other candidates, including Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who unsuccessfully challenged Nagin for mayor in 2006. Nagin won 83 votes, Jerry McKernan of Baton Rouge had 50 and Landrieu had 28. Nagin is one of 10 Louisiana superdelegates who will go to the convention and do not need to pledge their support to a candidate beforehand. Nagin said he hasn’t decided whether to support Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama because he had not decided which one would be better for New Orleans, a city still recovering from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The state party could still pick up an eleventh delegate if a Democrat won either of two congressional elections on Saturday. Sen. Derrick Shepherd of Marrero, facing a federal indictment in an alleged money laundering scheme, was also on the ballot as a candidate for superdelegate. But he announced before the vote that he had dropped out of that race. Shepherd remained on two ballots to be elected as a delegate pledged to support Obama, but did not win either slot. Besides electing Nagin as a superdelegate, the committee was voting for candidates for 19 delegate slots: 11 of them will go to the convention pledged to Obama, eight will be pledged to Clinton. Obama won the popular vote in Louisiana’s presidential party primary, with 57 percent to Clinton’s 36 percent. (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

The comment below is not mine but was taken from a nola message board. I believe her assessment of Nagin is correct. He wanted a chocolate city and I believe will pledge to a chocolate candidate. This whole superdelegate thing is a joke.

“Just what this state needs parading around at the Democratic Convention! Nagin will be a reminder to the Nation of how dumb the electorate continues to be in Louisiana. This guy has done absolutely nothing for this city since Hurricane Katrina. Landrieu is not much better but Nagin is seen by the Nation as a bumbling idoit!”