“They’re all crooks,” said a Louisiana-born chef, leaning outside his New Orleans restaurant on a cigarette break. I had tried to draw him into a conversation on which local politicians he favoured. “Who’s really there to support?” he shrugged, rattling off six names of Louisiana politicians and city officials who had been charged with corruption in the past few weeks.

That day the local paper, The Times-Picayune, had an expose on the mayor of Mandeville awarding public contracts to his relatives. Over the years, local mayors, Congressmen, Senators, Republican and Democrat both, have been convicted on various charges of bribery, racketeering, and extortion. Even after Hurricane Katrina struck, what insufficient funds New Orleans managed to get for reconstruction were often misused.

In Louisiana, politics can be dynastic with sons, daughters, and brothers succeeding and exchanging positions with one another. And most Democrats here are moderates — pro-gun, anti corporate-tax raises, pro-Iraq spending, and pro national security extensions — often clashing with other Democrats at the centre. Louisiana is the kind of place where Barrack Obama’s soaring calls for ‘Hope,’ and ‘Change,’ and introspection ring flat.

At a local “meet-the-neighbours” gathering in a neighbourhood bar my first evening in New Orleans, I met a boisterous middle-aged woman who said she couldn’t vote for Obama because he was too inexperienced. “He’s never had a real job!” she screamed. McCain, on the other hand, was tough and capable. “When McCain was captured in Vietnam and put in a cage by the Viet-Cong,” she growled, punching the air, “he didn’t give up, he said “screw you” to them, and fought his way out.” Someone else at the bar murmured that McCain had, at least, taken a stand against Saddam Hussein. Other people voiced vague fears of “China and other countries” and said McCain would be most likely to know what to do.

Given America’s entanglements in foreign affairs, and its nameless fears of other countries, Obama is perceived as too soft and McCain, the hard-boiled torture survivor, appears the grittier man. Joe Biden, Obama’s vice-presidential candidate, a long time foreign relations monitor, an initial supporter of the war in Iraq and later a critic of its mismanagement, will serve as a counterbalance to Obama. For the Democrats, Biden will hopefully be seen as the hardline voice steering Obama’s principled, albeit too idealistic, shoulder.

At a New Orleans cafe the next morning, the curly haired boy in his early twenties who served me my coffee said he supported Obama. He talked about doing the right thing and changing America. Like most young Obama supporters, his enthusiasm seemed buoyed by a sense of Obama’s personality and vitality, rather than by the concrete matter of issues. Another café regular, a middle-aged man in Bermudas, came in and overhearing our conversation, piped in, “Obama, Oh Please!” He was the only McCain supporter in his family. “You know what Obama is, he is slick, much too slick” he said, spitting out “slick” like he might have said “scum”. “He keeps changing his mind and going back on what he says,” he said, referring to Obama’s changed views on the timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. “McCain says what he means and he never goes back on it.” “What about taxes?” I said, since McCain had changed his mind on discontinuing the Bush tax cuts. “Taxes,” he sighed, “Yes, I know, my wife reminds me about that one every evening.”

Even apart from foreign policy, people have other gripes with Obama. One business owner I spoke to wondered if Obama’s taxes on big business wouldn’t mean more jobs leaving Louisiana and the US to go overseas. In a tough economy, he didn’t think he could put up with higher taxes even if they mean benefits for poor families. And Louisiana wants the money from offshore drilling, he explained. He had voted Democrat twice for Bill Clinton and he would vote for the Clintons again, he said, raising his hands, but he didn’t think he could afford an Obama presidency.

The chef on his cigarette break, leaning on the wall outside his New Orleans restaurant, told me he wasn’t planning to vote. He doesn’t stand by McCain’s pro-war stance, but Obama seems like he’s just telling everyone what they want to hear. “He came around here a few weeks ago,” the chef said, grinning with disbelief, “and he promised he would fix the education system, tackle corruption, and raise the levees. To do all that, he’d have to focus all his time only on Louisiana. And there’s fifty other states he’s been making all kinds of promises to.”

Aashti Bhartia studied anthropology at Columbia University and is a freelance writer