In the past 48-hours, the organizers of the petition to have LaToya Cantrell recalled as mayor of New Orleans released its first official campaign finance report. The report details how much money the committee has raised since it officially filed the petition in late August. That amount is approximately $63,000. It also detailed who has donated to the recall campaign. Roughly half the money has come from small donations, but the Cantrell administration didn’t waste any time homing in on two Republicans who donated $30,000 collectively. Richard Farrell is the owner of Walk-Ons. He donated $20,000. Boysie Bollinger, of Bollinger shipyard fame, donated $10,000 to the recall committee.
Cantrell’s campaign manager said in a statement that the money donated by the two “Trump mega donors” confirms the recall effort is a Republican concoction. In previous statements and comments, the mayor and her team have claimed the growing recall petition is a Republican conspiracy to undercut the first black female mayor of New Orleans. They have consistently ignored the fact that two African American, native New Orleanians are leading the recall. On Wednesday’s edition of the the Newell Normand Show, Newell said the Cantrell administration’s desperate deflection game is expected.
“But what’s really misleading, and that’s no big surprise when it comes to Mayor LaToya Cantrell, because there’s not a lot, let’s be honest, there’s not a lot of transparency here and there’s not a lot of truth being provided by this administration at this point in time. They have become the masters of deception. They are the masters of creating smoke screens and diversions to try to get you to look the other way,” said Newell.
Newell said where Cantrell and her minions don’t want the public to look is at her record on crime, infrastructure, poor management of the NOPD and the list goes on. Newell also pointed to a physical record that Cantrell’s people wouldn’t want you to see because contradicts their claims of a Republican plot to oust her from office.
“So, I took the time to go through her campaign finance report. Oh my God, there’s a whole bunch of Republicans on there that gave her money. It must have been a conspiracy to elect Mayor LaToya Cantrell,” Newell said on Wednesday.
One name that appeared on Cantrell’s campaign finance report: Boysie Bollinger. Newell said it was “mind numbing” that Cantrell’s administration would try to cast Bollinger in a bad light. Newell called Bollinger “one of the most aggressive corporate partners” to the New Orleans community. It would be interesting to hear from Cantrell why she was happy to take Boysie Bollinger’s money for her own campaign and why it’s so toxic when it comes to the recall petition against her.
“So, he’s part of the conspiracy to elect her and now he’s part of the conspiracy to remove her, but she don’t want to talk about the conspiracy to elect her right? We’ll just take that nasty Republican money and get elected,” Newell said.
In Newell’s view, it seems like Cantrell can’t see that perhaps a growing number of people, like Bollinger, have come to a point that they made a mistake with Cantrell. They made a mistake in donating money to get her elected. They made a mistake in voting for her. Admitting and correcting mistakes is a sign of maturity. It is what we expect of adults. It’s not what we’ve come to expect from a mayor who refuses to admit she’s wrong in anything she does.
“This is the proverbial cut off your nose to spite your face. Why? Because she thinks she is the center of the New Orleans universe. If anybody out there really thinks she gives a damn about anything else, you’re sadly mistaken,” Newell said.
