NEW ORLEANS - With the entrance her entrance this week into the race for New Orleans Mayor, Leslie Jacobs now joins Nadine Ramsey as one of the two women running for the city's top job.
"New Orleans is at a critical juncture and desperately needs leadership," Jacobs said.
"I want to see our city come back strong," Ramsey said, on why she decided to run. "I want to offer the leadership."
Although the majority of the City Council is made up of women, no woman has never been elected Mayor of New Orleans.
"While it's interesting that women hold a solid majority on the council, we've never had a woman even in the runoff for mayor," said Eyewitness News political analyst Clancy DuBos. "But maybe this is the year."
As of now, women outnumber men among registered voters in the city. Out of the 272,161 registered voters in Orleans Parish, 152,587 are women-- roughly 56 percent. It is a demographic that has not gone unnoticed by other mayoral candidates, including John Georges, whose campaign now includes the group "Women for Georges."
"I'm honored to have my wife as an equal partner in the race," Georges said. "She's working on the 'Women for Georges.'"
"Georges is certainly going after the female vote, but he has his wife out there as the head of 'Women for Georges,' DuBos said. "Leslie Jacobs and Nadine Ramsey don't need to have somebody out there in their stead, because they are females."
Yet, will that make a difference? DuBos said it all depended on which direction the mayoral campaign eventually heads in.
"Is it going to be shifted on the basis of gender, of race, of age, of political party, of being a business person versus a politician? There are lots of ways for this paradigm to align itself and it really depends on who has a good message that resonates with the voters," DuBos said, "and that will determine how the paradigm shifts in New Orleans politics."
The first test of any potential political shift will come during the primary election, which is scheduled for February 6, 2010.
