• In our cover story, Jeremy Alford takes a look at the Landrieu/Kennedy megabrawl for the U.S. Senate seat…

• Clancy DuBos runs the numbers on the Bill Jefferson/Helena Moreno race for the House of Representatives, and comes to some interesting conclusions. Math don’t lie…

• A stripper-turned-preacher, a rockabilly legend, and the fierce competitors for a drag beauty title are among the subjects of documentaries at the New Orleans Film Festival. Will Coviello, Noah Bonaparte Pais, David Lee Simmons, and Caroline Goyette review some of the more interesting offerings…

• Alison Fensterstock previews the 3rd annual Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival…

• …and there’s a row in our Letters section regarding Clancy’s column last week regarding Entergy New Orleans. Weighing in: a spokesperson for Entergy, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, and New Orleans councilmember Shelley Midura.

Pick up the paper on Sunday, or click back here on Monday.

Politics or celebrity? Pick your poison:

• Rep. Derrick Shepherd pleads out, apologizes:

I had never committed a crime until now and I took pride in that.

• Up in Kentwood, 17-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is reported to be gravid with #2.

Though the nation may have turned its attention to its dwindling 401(k)s, the Iraq war rages on, and tonight the group Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) will be hosting a jam session at Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club to ensure the foreign battlefronts aren’t forgotten.

Local musician Al Bernard, the father of a son who has recently returned from Iraq, organized the event. “While the nation focuses on the Wall Street bailout and the elections, we need to remember that there is still a war going on,” says Bernard.

Proceeds from the event will go towards purchasing a billboard on I-10 to call for an end to the Iraq War.

Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club, 1931 St. Claude Ave., 945-9654, 7-9 p.m.

The ever-inventive New Orleans theater troupe Running With Scissors has a hilarious new wrinkle in self-promotion — a trailer for its latest production, the camp melodrama Die! Mommy! Die!. That’s right: a trailer, just like all those pro-fessional TV commercials for the big touring musicals that used to come to the Saenger. Enjoy:

DIE! MOMMY! DIE! tells the story of Angela Arden (Brian Peterson), a fading songbird and eternal glamourpuss married to has-been movie producer Sol Sussman (Bob Edes, Jr.). Between her loveless relationship, her spiteful daughter, Edith (Dorian Rush), her precocious, addled son, Lance (Dwayne Sepcich), and her bitter, bible-quoting housekeeper, Bootsie (Jack Long), Angela is at her wit’s end. But just in the nick of time, Angela finds love—or lust!—in the arms of hunky tennis pro Tony Parker (Leon Contavesprie). Will they achieve their dream of starting new lives together? Or will Edith and Lance send Angela on a different kind of trip? And is no one immune to the seductive effects of Tony and his “big rumor”? Join us at Le Chat Noir to find out!

The show runs through Oct. 19 at Le Chat Noir; tickets are $21-26.

Michael P. Smith, the extraordinary photographer whose photos of the city and its musicians (particularly his images from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival), will be honored with a second line this weekend.

Smith, who died Sept. 26 at the age of 71, photographed every Jazz Fest until his retirement in 2004. According to his Web site:

Smith’s work has been presented at the Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution), the International Center for Photography in New York, and the LeRoy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University, as well as numerous other museums, galleries, and jazz festivals in America and Europe. A major retrospective of his work was presented in 1999 at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.

Smith’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution and, locally, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Louisiana State Museum.

(Thanks to bark, bugs, leaves, and lizards for the heads-up and the graphic.)

Michael Lewis, financial writer and New Orleans native, has left Portfolio and The New York Times Magazine and will be reporting exclusively for Vanity Fair, reports the New York Observer.

Lewis covered Hurricane Katrina extensively for the Times Magazine, and recently wrote a story of waiting out Hurricane Gustav at his sister’s Uptown home (not much happened). According to the Observer, the details have yet to be worked out, but it would be nice to get a little financial analysis and New Orleans spice inserted amid the beautiful-people stories and stink-strip ads in VF.

Business & Media, Oct. 6, 2008:

It seems anxiety from the financial crisis is reaching new highs, but the tipping point for one individual came at the Lehman Brothers gym in the midst of the company’s collapse.

While former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld was testifying before the House Oversight Committee Oct. 6, CNBC reported he had been punched in the face at the Lehman Brothers gym after it was announced the firm was going bankrupt. CNBC and Vanity Fair contributor Vicki Ward said Fuld was attacked at the gym on a Sunday following the bankruptcy.

“Frankly, I sat there and listened and I’m with the guy who apparently, the day before Barclays announced they were coming in and Lehman had already filed for bankruptcy, went over to him in the gym and punched him because that’s how I feel when I, you know, when I watched that,” Ward said on the Oct. 6 Power Lunch. “I didn’t think he was contrite at all, I thought he was arrogant.”

ABC News, Oct. 7, 2008:

Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today.

“Rooms at this resort can cost over $1,000 a night,” Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said this morning as his committee continued its investigation of Wall Street and its CEOs.

AIG documents obtained by Waxman’s investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges….

Can’t find confirmation elsewhere on the Web, but WDSU is reporting that:

Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin may visit Louisiana at the end of this month for a fundraiser.

Insiders told NewsChannel 6 that she will travel to Pensacola, Fla., next week prior to her visit to New Orleans.

Nothing about it on the official McCain/Palin Web site (yet), but the possibilities are intriguing, if not mindboggling. Since it’s deer-hunting season, will the RNC be offering a hunting trip with John McCain’s co-maverick? (Better to go hunting with Gov. Palin than with the current veep, obviously.)

Should Palin’s visit come to pass and you’re unable or unwilling to afford the (no doubt) megabuck donation, you have a more affordable option. Comedian Julie Brown has rewritten her 80s novelty hit “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun,” and is selling her all-new single “The Girl V.P.’s Got a Gun” for the low, low price of only $1.99.

I’m hoping Clancy will post today to offer some perspective on all the races last night (including the Orleans School Board). Meanwhile, a sampling of opinions nationally and locally on the prospect of Bill Jefferson vs. Helena Moreno…which can be summed up as “keeping the brand out there”:

The New York Times:

Representative William J. Jefferson overcame the stigma of a federal bribery indictment in Louisiana’s Democratic primary on Saturday, garnering enough votes in his Congressional district to secure a spot in a Nov. 4 runoff.

Mr. Jefferson, seeking his 10th term in Congress, faces a trial in December on charges that he took bribes, laundered money and misused his Congressional office for business dealings in Africa. He has denied wrongdoing and refused to discuss details of the accusations against him.

With about 72 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Jefferson was leading with 25 percent and appeared headed toward a runoff, most likely with a former broadcaster, Helena Moreno.

Mr. Jefferson sounded confident as he addressed a few dozen family members and supporters at a restaurant in eastern New Orleans. “We look forward to a rigorous campaign but a successful outcome,” he said.

As he had throughout the campaign, Mr. Jefferson insisted that he remained an effective member of Congress, and he called questions on whether the indictment had damaged that effectiveness “pointless.”

Politico.com:

Despite facing a 16-count indictment on racketeering and soliciting bribes, Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) still has another political lifeline.

The scandal-plagued congressman finished in first place in a seven-candidate primary field, and will be facing television reporter Helena Moreno in the November runoff. Jefferson finished with 25 percent of the vote, while Moreno tallied 20 percent. The next-closest candidate, state Rep. Cedric Richmond, won 17 percent.

Race will likely play a prominent role in the runoff. Moreno, who is white, will have to win over a substantial number of African-American voters in the New Orleans-based district to prevail in November. About 64 percent of the district’s voters are African-American.

CQ Politics:

Democratic Rep. William J. Jefferson of Louisiana’s 2nd District, who is awaiting trial on federal bribery and corruption charges, received just more than a quarter of the vote in Saturday’s Democratic primary election — but that was enough to place him first in the seven-candidate field and qualify him for a primary runoff that will be held Nov. 4.

And some homegrown reaction…

Cliff’s Crib (read it in its entirety, please!)

How in the hell is William Jefferson in a run-off for his congressional seat? He will be on the ballot against Helena Moreno on the day when there will be the biggest black voter turnout of all time. Unless a miracle happens he’s going to win and I can’t be more pissed off.

I remember back in 1994 when Marion Barry became mayor of Washington D.C. after he was arrested for and caught on videotape smoking crack. All I could think of was with all the families that have been affected by the selling and smoking of crack, how could they possibly elect a guy that endorses it through his actions. When crack was out of control in D.C. how could you take any cries for help seriously when the mayor was a known user and still got elected? One could assume rightfully or wrongfully that crack was a pretty cool thing in D.C.

Here we are down here in New Orleans bitching and moaning about everything other people have that we don’t. We want better schools. We need some hospitals. We need drug treatment facilities. We need new infrastructure and to fix this blight problem. We need to make the streets safer for our citizens. We need some economic development and more jobs. I could go on. It is obvious even to the most ignorant person that all these issues affect the black community more than anyone else in this city. I know it appears that more white people make their concerns public but the reality of it is that there are no white ghettos and hoods in the city limits. If there is a school with subpar conditions and limited resources I can assure you that ninety nine percent of those kids in there are black. That’s not a racist statement. That’s just the truth and you are in denial if you don’t agree.

And Big Red Cotton:

THESE ARE THE CHOICES!?!

Central City’s own ‘American Gangster’ or The Poor Bayou Man’s Sarah Palin

OUR VOTERS ARE A SMOKIN’ HOT AZZ MESS!!

I thought we were talking about trying to upgrade here? You know - the city’s been wiped out… We’ve got a chance to rebuild it the right way, get rid of what’s been slowly killing us: corruption, cronyism, crime…

Is it really possible, given the level of on-your-face-in-the-mud suffering going on here, that the ones doing the worst would vote for the one doing the worst to us?!?

And the best thing you can say for the chosen alternative is that she’s a fresh face that hasn’t been caught in a lie yet?

Ugh! This city needs an intervention!

I’m watching Clancy pundit-ize on WWL with Dennis Woltering and Lucy Bustamante, which is fun.

So: Bill Jefferson and Helena Moreno projected in the runoff for the District 2 House seat. (I just talked to a friend — poll sample of one — who told me “In that case, I won’t be voting.” Zoinks.)

Leon Cannizzaro and Ralph Capitelli jockeying for Orleans D.A. (Capitelli gave fulsome congratulations to third-place finisher Jason Williams, obviously looking for an endorsement).

And some fun one-upsmanship and aggressive microphone-jockeying among the local media at the various campaign headquarters, who are rushing the candidates at the podiums. (Cannizzaro snapped: “Get off the stage.”)

Thoughts on the races? School board? Bottom of the ticket races? The media? The punditry? Or are you just waiting to see Tina Fey and Queen Latifah impersonate Sarah Palin and Gwen Ifill?