Free Republic

<p>BATON ROUGE - Gov. Kathleen Blanco will travel to Monroe to meet with community leaders about coping with the loss of State Farm Insurance, Northeast Louisiana's largest private employer.</p> <p>Blanco also intends to probe State Farm executives as to why they decided to close the offices there.</p>

<p>BATON ROUGE - Democrats complained Thursday that Republicans were attempting to suppress black voter turnout in Saturday's election through a radio ad that purported to be from a group of District of Columbia school parents.</p> <p>The ad, featuring a black woman, asks Louisiana voters "to say no to the Democrats," specifically saying U. S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans, is opposed to vouchers to allow D.C. parents to use public funds to send their children to private schools.</p>

<p>Personal profile Name: Dan Kyle. Age: 66, born Aug. 29, 1937. Hometown: Baton Rouge. Party affiliation: Republican. Previous work experience: Legislative Auditor 1989-2003; LSU associate professor of accounting 1968-89; also taught at University of Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Tulane 1961-68. Profession: Auditor.</p>

<p>Posted on November 10, 2003 Republican Bobby Jindal's campaign to become the first Indian-American governor in American history has touched a nerve with some Pakistani-Americans, who are lining up to support Democrat Kathleen Blanco of Lafayette in Saturday's runoff.</p> <p>The support culminated during an Oct. 21 fund-raiser for Blanco in Lake Charles sponsored by the Pakistani-American Business Association of Louisiana, which gave Blanco $50,000 for her campaign.</p>

<p>Absentee voting slowed statewide for a while Thursday when the St. Landry Parish registrar of voters ran a program to check if precincts are registered correctly.</p> <p>The state computer used to verify registration and tell registrars of voters which precinct ballots to hand to absentee voters mysteriously became bogged down for about 45 minutes, state Assistant Elections Commissioner Pat Bergeron said. State computer experts checked the system when two registrars called to find out why it was taking two minutes instead of a few seconds for the computer to issue the information.</p>