The Cajun Democrat who could shake up the 2020 field

The subtitle of his book, a frank account of racism in America, is “A White Southerner Confronts History.” It includes tough words about the failures of politics to stop discrimination. In one passage, Landrieu points out that on the campaign trail, Ronald Reagan condemned the murders of civil rights workers, but that he then approved a budget that served pickled relish as a vegetable in poorer public schools.

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He also knows, according to a person close to him, that running statewide in red Louisiana would likely be impossible after some of the decisions he’s made and constituencies he’s catered to as a strongly Democratic mayor. Also that his father, former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, sometimes regrets not having run for president himself.

Landrieu hasn’t raised money or hired any consultants or conspicuously campaign-minded aides. But he does have his prominent cheerleaders with local roots, like Louisiana native and former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile, who said he’d be “a fantastic candidate.”

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