"We were all struck by the faces at the Convention Center," Matthews said. "My own reaction about it is pretty strong. If they'd all been white faces, I think (President) Bush would've really been in trouble. "I think that the whole country, depending on your political or personal feelings, was taken with that picture and didn't like that picture. It wasn't a great 'Bicentennial Moment' for the country. "I think if President Bush had come in there the first day with a big truck of water bottles and said, 'I'm here to save the day,' how different the whole thing would have seemed. "If the cavalry arrived, . . . I think that would've been a glowing moment for America."
RPCV Chris Matthews moderates candidate debate for mayor of New Orleans
MSNBC's Chris Matthews puts New Orleans candidates on the national hot seat
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Dave Walker
The race for New Orleans mayor will get a national spotlight Monday at 8 p.m. when the cable news network MSNBC carries a candidate debate co-produced by local NBC affiliate WDSU.
The seven candidates who will get a coast-to-coast coaxial forum Monday night are, in alphabetical order: Virginia Boulet, Rob Couhig, Ron Forman, Mitch Landrieu, Ray Nagin, Tom Watson and Peggy Wilson.
"Our main goal on this, obviously, is to reach evacuees no matter where they evacuated to," said Anzio Williams, news director of WDSU, which will also carry the countdown scrum on its airwaves. "I think everyone around the country has a vested interest. Their tax dollars are coming down here. We think it's important that they see we have viable candidates, (see) who the next potential leader of the city will be."
New Orleans "will continue to go to (Washington) D.C., asking for a lot of money," Williams added. "I think the New Orleans mayor's race will have national implications."
Enter cable-news Gatling gun Chris Matthews, who will co-moderate the debate with WDSU anchor Norman Robinson.
"We've been on the phone several times the last couple of weeks talking about questions, preparing how we want to do things, how we'll transition from one subject to the next, how to cut 'em off," Williams said.
Especially the cut 'em off part.
Just guessing.
An excitable antagonist regularly and brilliantly lampooned by "Saturday Night Live" mimic Darrell Hammond, Matthews hosts MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" (weeknights, 6 p.m.) and his own syndicated political roundtable (Sunday, 5:30 a.m., WDSU).
Matthews has written about politics for the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle newspapers.
Before that, he was a speechwriter for President Carter and on the staffs of U.S. Sens. Frank Moss and Edmund Muskie, and as the chief aide to Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.
Before that, Matthews trained for a Peace Corps stint in Swaziland at since-shuttered Leland College near Baton Rouge, and would hitchhike to New Orleans for -- presumably -- unpeaceful fun.
Some of his fondest political memories were made at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans, the one that gave the world Vice President Dan Quayle.
He remembers staying at the Fairmont ("The old Huey Long hangout!") during the convention, and socializing at the Napoleon House ("You can spend all day there!").
"I loved that week!" he said during a recent telephone interview. "The whole setup of the city was perfect.
"I love the city."
And for more than personal memories. Matthews brought "Hardball" to town for a couple of episodes in the dark lockdown days immediately post-K, and was already churning through the catastrophe's national, regional and local political implications.
"Politics is a spectator sport," he said then, "until you're given the football."
Matthews spoke about New Orleans with great affection that day, and he did it again on the phone last week.
"New Orleans is one of those seminal American cities, like Chicago or New York," he said. "Things come out of it. Our culture comes out of it. Things originate there.
"I think it's one of those favorite five cities. If you ask people their favorite five cities in the country, it's always on the list.
"America really comes out of that city. And I think people have that feeling about it."
Thanks to cable news networks like MSNBC, and especially their coverage of local events that immediately followed Hurricane Katrina -- and the national events that didn't immediately follow the local events -- the race for New Orleans mayor is a national race. A plan already is in place to have "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams co-moderate a later mayoral debate, also to be carried nationally by MSNBC, should there be a runoff.
"We were all struck by the faces at the Convention Center," Matthews said. "My own reaction about it is pretty strong. If they'd all been white faces, I think (President) Bush would've really been in trouble.
"I think that the whole country, depending on your political or personal feelings, was taken with that picture and didn't like that picture. It wasn't a great 'Bicentennial Moment' for the country.
"It's such a big American story. It's also a story of what may have been, depending on your views, an open door to this (presidential) administration, that made people think, 'Are they really on top of things? Do they really have their priorities right?'
"I think if President Bush had come in there the first day with a big truck of water bottles and said, 'I'm here to save the day,' how different the whole thing would have seemed.
"If the cavalry arrived, . . . I think that would've been a glowing moment for America."
Matthews and Robinson will both fire off questions during the one-hour debate, Robinson concentrating on the local, Matthews on the global.
"The questions I'll be dealing with are national questions and trying to get the answers to them," Matthews said. "What did it mean to you, that imagery at the Convention Center? What did it mean that the president had to have a DVD played for him to catch him up on the Convention Center?
"Is corrupt politics cute anymore? Why do you go to the State Capitol and walk into the room and Huey Long is talking to you? I mean, Warren G. Harding isn't talking to you in Washington! Why do you celebrate Huey Long?
"What does 'The Big Easy' mean? Can the city still afford that moniker?
"Questions like that. I'm not going to be an outsider coming in and taking names. I am going to try to put on a national television screen a relevance to people . . . something they can take away and say, 'That's a good question' or 'I was surprised at that answer.'
"I guess my goal is that people who watch this show Monday who don't know any more than I know will walk away saying, 'I may know something about the ethnic factor, the racial factor, what people are angry about, what people agree on.' "
In the many late-night candidate forums he's hosted on WDSU's "6 on Your Side Live," Robinson has proved an adept rhetoric wrangler, as well as a format stickler.
A veteran pol-watcher who loves a good ballot tussle, Matthews said he'll be equally mindful of enforcing the agreed-upon rules of engagement.
"If somebody goes over and seems to have a proclivity for not listening to the time limits, I might deal with that," he said.
Pause.
Then, à la "SNL's" Hammond as Matthews:
"Ha! I mean, I just won't put up with it!"
. . . . . . .
TV columnist Dave Walker can be reached at dwalker@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3429.
