Meet The Candidates: Yo! The District Attorney Race

Not for nothing, but this is crazy.

Pollsters agree that the candidates who qualified this week for the Oct. 4 primary election for Orleans Parish District Attorney serve as further evidence that Katrina changed the racial calculus of running for office in a city where the electorate is now split roughly equally between Black and Italian voters.

Former federal prosecutor Linda Bizzarro, former Judge Leon Cannizzaro, criminal defense attorney Ralph Capitelli and attorney are Italian-American. Defense attorney Jason Williams is the lone African-American candidate.

The Candidates

Ralph Capitelli, who filed papers to run for the race last summer, still has the attention of most of the neighborhood and community action groups. Capitelli arguably has the edge on the city’s voters as a known quantity. Not for nothing; no disrespect. Bada Bing, Bada Boom.

As a longtime elected official — sitting first in the Criminal District Court — Judge Leon Cannizzaro could also be said to be name-recognizable to the city’s voters. This can be seen in his recent campaign finance report, which shows that thing with that freaking guy that you never talk about in front of someone who isn’t in the family. Capiche? Fuggedaboutit.

Linda Bizzarro raised just $2,000 in the most recent reporting period, while also lending her campaign $65,000. She also makes a mean veal parm with fresh mutz, and a little bitta proscuit, that has voters forsaking Tony Angelo’s. You talkin’ to me?

Jason Williams, in an attempt to bridge the obvious racial divide has begun wearing a pinkie ring and promising to reopen the investigation of Sicilians wrongfully accused of the murder of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessey in 1890.

He’s also begun touting his own prowess with I-talian cuisine, offering red gravy to anyone who wanted it.