Early returns show Nagin leading race

A jazz band greeted displaced voters at city hall.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Mayor Ray Nagin led Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu in early returns Saturday from a mayoral election between onetime allies with similar ideas but different styles for leading this hurricane-ravaged city through one of the biggest reconstruction projects in U.S. history.
With 1 percent of the vote counted, Nagin had 56 percent, or 255 votes, to Landrieu's 44 percent, or 204 votes.
Whoever wins takes office a day before the June 1 start of the next hurricane season in a city where streets are still strewn with rusting, mud-covered cars and entire neighborhoods consist of homes that are empty shells.
"I want the city to come back," said 61-year-old Alice Howard, an evacuee who returned by bus from Houston to cast her ballot. "I want to make sure the correct person takes care of home."
Howard and 250 other evacuees wearing "Displaced Voter" T-shirts were greeted by a jazz band at a city hall rally with Nagin and Landrieu.
The candidates embraced when they met, reflecting the civil tone of a race where there has been little disagreement on the major issues: the right of residents to rebuild in all areas and the urgent need for federal aid for recovery and the best possible levee protection.
Self-described outsider
Nagin, a self-styled maverick, portrays himself as a political outsider brave enough to stand up to federal officials when necessary. The former cable television executive, first elected to public office in 2002, has argued the city can ill afford to change course just as rebuilding gathers steam.
The janitor's son from a black, working-class neighborhood is known for his improvisational, some say impulsive, rhetoric. After Katrina plunged his city into chaos, Nagin was both scorned and praised for a tearful plea for the federal government to "get off their [behinds] and do something" and his now-famous remark that New Orleans was intended to be a "chocolate" city.
From political family
Landrieu, who served 16 years in the state House before being elected to his current post two years ago, says his strength is his ability to bring people together.
The scion of a political dynasty known as Louisiana's version of the Kennedys, he's the brother of Sen. Mary Landrieu and would be the first white mayor in a generation, since his father, Moon Landrieu, left office in 1978.