A federal investigation into spending by Mayor LaToya Cantrell's image consultant is the latest scandal to consume the mayor. It comes as organizers of a recall effort against Cantrell redouble their efforts to oust the mayor one year after the start of her second term.
Will this new scandal help the recall effort's cause? One political analyst says: not likely.
"They're halfway through their timeframe but only collected thirty-five percent of the required signatures," Dr. Ed Chervenak, pollster and political science professor at the University of New Orleans, told WWL's Tommy Tucker. "That suggests to me they're falling behind."
Cervenak says the next few weeks will be unkind to the recall effort because voters won't have their full attention on what the mayor is doing.
"Now we're going to be approaching the holiday season where people will be distracted dealing with the holidays, and they're not necessarily going to be focusing on politics and focusing on the recall," Chervenak said. "I think they have a very difficult task in front of them."
Chervenak also expressed doubt that recall organizers' plan to mail petitions to voters will help them achieve their goal of 53,000 signatures by Ash Wednesday.
"The problem with that is that you'll probably get a very low response rate," Chervenak said. "When we do mail surveys, people basically toss them aside and don't fill them out, and we get very, very low response rates. I suspect that's going to happen with this as well."
All of this, Chervenak says, will embolden Cantrell during the final three years of her term.
"In terms of the recall, I think the odds are in her favor," Chervenak said of Cantrell. "I think she'll continue to remain defiant and ride it out. She's term limited, so she doesn't have the face the voters again. That gives her free reign."
