After seven years of Ray Nagin, the people of New Orleans are all too familiar with the idea of a buffoon as their mayor.

It’s questionable whether an appetite exists for another pea from that pod. Such an appetite would have to be ravenous in order for it to do John Georges any good in his attempt to succeed Nagin in the city’s top job.

Georges was caught on audio making ludicrous statements to the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee about how Mitch Landrieu hasn’t done anything about Jim Letten remaining as the U.S. Attorney in the city, among other things. The rant, captured by lefty blogger Eli Ackerman at wecouldbefamous.blogspot.com, set off a good deal of controversy in the city, not to mention a good bit of ridicule of the failed 2007 gubernatorial candidate, who has crossed the spectrum from being a registered Republican as late as 2006, an independent when he broke a state record for a major gubernatorial candidate by spending some $61 per vote in 2007, and a Democrat now in pursuit of the mayor’s job.

Asked about his dippy speech on Friday, Georges told the Times-Picayune the whole thing was a goof. And oh, by the way, the cigarette and video poker magnate informed the paper that he’s crazy like a fox because he was actually just trying to herd his audience away from endorsing Landrieu – and lo and behold, he was successful since the OPDEC ended up endorsing Troy Henry.

Impressed yet? Here was Georges’ actual quote:

“I went into that room with the look of a serious-looking guy,” Georges explained. “I went in there and kicked into this routine and blamed Mitch for keeping U.S. attorneys and not having hospitals. I knew I couldn’t convince a group of people that after switching parties I could get their endorsement. But I knew it would cost Mitch millions of dollars by (Landrieu) not getting the endorsement.”

And here’s a little more:

“It’s a room of 100 mostly African-American Democrats,” he said. “Some are with Bill Jefferson. Some are with Marc Morial. Who knows who these people are? I walked into a room of strangers.”

The takeaway from this? John Georges is his own biggest fan. And he’s really funny…but not in the way he thinks he is.