Posted on 10/28/2007 9:33:59 PM PDT by Coleus
The following editorial appeared Oct. 24, in the Dallas Morning News:
Last weekend's election of Bobby Jindal as Louisiana's next governor is the best thing to happen in a long time to a state that's not used to things going its way. The 36-year-old Republican wunderkind swept into office riding a wave of voter disgust with the state's status quo. The reform governor-elect offers the most wide-open opportunity Louisiana has had in recent memory to turn away from the corrupt political culture that keeps the state scraping bottom.
Jindal ran for governor four years ago but lost to Kathleen Blanco after the state's most conservative region voted for the white Democrat over the brown-skinned Republican. Then came Hurricane Katrina. Blanco's hapless response destroyed her career, and she chose not to seek re-election. More profound, the state's lack of preparedness for the New Orleans hurricane revealed to its citizens the cost of tolerating "laissez les bons temps rouler"-style government. This time around, sobered-up voters made Jindal, an ethically clean, hypercompetent congressman, a shoo-in. His 54 percent of the vote, combined with 14 percent for a rival candidate who also ran a reform campaign, demonstrates a powerful mandate for positive change.
Jindal is unusual for several reasons. The Baton Rouge-born son of Indian immigrants, he is the first non-white Louisiana governor since Reconstruction. He is also a devout Catholic, having converted as a teenager from Hinduism. Even more peculiar for a state that has long endured one of the highest levels of out-migration by native-born young professionals, the Ivy-League-educated Jindal chose to stay home and fight to improve his home state. Alas, the record shows that Louisiana's reform governors usually shipwreck themselves on the shoals of the state's crookedness and incompetence. Here's hoping that Bobby Jindal continues to defeat cynicism and defy history.
Hmmm, an ethically clean, hypercompetent candidate did well in the south and in a Democratic state in spite of his unusual religious background. I wonder where we could find a candidate to run nationally that matches that bill?
Honestly, (I’m asking the press here) who other than the race baiters gives a flying fiddler’s fart about the ethnicity of a candidate?
If a candidate’s RACE matters to you, then YOU are the racist, DBM.
Louisiana
laissez les bons temps rouler - Cajun for “Let the good times roll.”
Mitt Romney!
I was watching some video of him the other night, and I was struck by how much he reminds me, physically, of Bobby Kennedy. Don’t know what it is about him, he just does.
I like your tag. In Katrina everything the liberals had buried, even the truth, floated to the surface.
Bobby Jindal is going to be worth watching over the next ten years or so. The election of 2012 anyone?
His weakness, in a political race, is that he talks very fast, almost cluttering his words. There is something about Bobby Kennedy in his speech.
It’s possibly that almost too lean look. My first impression was “Former H.S. geek” LOL! I saw him on one of the Sunday talk shows. VERY impressive guy and I wish him luck cleaning up LA politics. A daunting task to say the least. But he is young and energetic. I just love how the fact he did win has driven the left absolutely nuts. Go Bobby!
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