Posted on 10/20/2007 4:39:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
Tonight, the man who may well be the Republican Party's brightest hope could take the reins of America's most ungovernable state. If you haven't heard of Bobby Jindal, almost certain to be the next Governor of Louisiana, it's partly because his sense of action and purpose about Louisiana post-Katrina is so strong that it's scared off any credible challengers, making this a boring race. The question is whether Jindal can do the next-to-impossible, clearing 50% plus one and winning Louisiana's "jungle primary" outright. No gubernatorial candidate in an open seat race has ever done that before in Louisiana history.
Normally, an aura of inevitability like this would take years in state politics to establish. If you know little about Jindal, what I'm about to say next will shock you.
Bobby Jindal is 36 years old.
In another year, in another state, the election of a "skinny kid with a funny name" made national headlines. Like Jindal, this precocious young politician was a lock to win. And when he did so in the shadow of the most closely-watched Presidential election in a generation, he made national headlines. The day the papers carried the headlines "Bush defeats Kerry" the next headline was "Obama takes Illinois."
Obama was immediately a national media sensation, and it wasn't because of his track record as a Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago. Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, will make no such headlines on Sunday, or four weeks from now when he finishes the job. But unlike Obama, he has actually accomplished some real things. And he actually has chance to become President someday.
The media may ignore Bobby Jindal because he's a Republican, but the story of his political rise is no less powerful. In 1996, the 24-year old Rhodes Scholar and Congressional staffer got noticed by incoming Governor Mike Foster, and was put in charge of Louisiana's health system with responsibility for 40% of the state's budget. He turned his department's $440 million deficit into a $200 million surplus. In 2001, not even 30 yet, he was made an Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services in the incoming Bush Administration. His passion: health care. In his early twenties, he faced the choice between pursuing a joint legal-medical degree at Harvard or Yale, or the path that took him to Oxford and then to public service.
For someone who had made a career out of the public eye, reforming cumbersome bureaucracies, Jindal laid a surprisingly strong claim to the governor's office when he first ran in 2003. He finished first in the jungle primary and was anointed by Gov. Foster as his preferred successor.
But it wasn't to be.
In the runoff, Jindal was savaged by negative ads from the campaign of Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. The ads showed a darkened Jindal and called him a heartless bean-counter.
Instead of hitting back, Jindal took the high road. He refused to dignify what he believed were false smears with a full response. Going into the runoff, the race was tied. Jindal would wind up losing to the lesser Blanco by four points. He lost conservative northern Louisiana communities he should have won. That was the last time, Jindal resolved, that he would be blindsided by negative attacks.
Bobby would be back. A few weeks later, he announced for Congress, a race he easily won. It was in his first year that he and the state faced the defining event that would lead to the reckoning Louisiana faces now.
Where the hapless Blanco dithered and federal officials sat on their hands during Hurricane Katrina, Bobby Jindal was one who led. RedState's Ben Domenech tells the story of one helicopter pilot raring to save people from the deluge. They thought to ask for authorization to do the job of the Coast Guard. They called FEMA, the Department of Transportation, the military. No one could give them a straight answer.
So Jindal told the pilot, "Go in."
"You got me authorization?" replied the pilot.
"Yeah, I'm giving you your authorization right now," said the first-term Congressman.
In a country that's seen the Republican brand sag because of corruption and managerial incompetence, one state stands alone in returning to its Republican roots: Louisiana. That's because they've lived corruption and big government incompetence -- on steroids. And the party that failed Louisiana when lives were at stake were the Democrats. The people who felt the wrath of Katrina most directly blamed local Democrats, and not the distant Republican administration in Washington.
Louisiana has a chance -- a moment -- to reform a culture of corruption and cut its bloated government. While the rest of the South boomed, Louisiana was left behind, mired in a culture of dependence and corrupt, rent-seeking politicians. The one who's set to undo that tragic legacy that culminated in Katrina is Bobby Jindal, the anti-Huey Long.
The election is today?
Yep, I’m on my way to vote for Jindal in about 30 minutes. The Dems have really tried to bash him but it’s not working this time. One candidate said Jindal has cut a deal to dump toxic waste in La. Bobby will win without a run off.
I sure wish I could vote for that man.
He would get my vote too
He’d be governor already if the pointy headed morons of the upper NW corner of La. had not been able to stop him the last time. Bobby will be a great governor!
Say what? I hate it when folks slip in this type of trash comment. It's very destructive.
Where is the corruption Townhall? This statement makes it seem you see rampant corruption within the party. What the hell is that about?
Here we have Hillary Clinton laundering money again, and you slander the Repbulican Party as if it were the party of corruption. That is despicable!
As for managerial incompetence, that is also a despicable charge. Differences of opinion do not necessarily make for managerial incompetence. Take a look at Congress and tell me the Republicans have practiced managerial incompetence.
Anotherwords, look at the left in this nation and then tell me why you would think it necessary to slander the Republican Party for managerial incompetence.
Good Lord, who reviewed this article before going to print, Lassie?
A candle in the window for other Republicans? I sure hope so. I’ll be pulling for an outright victory tonight.
Jindal’s been in Congress for 2 years? Light footprint even on FR , hasn’t he?
Louisiana holds its State elections on Saturdays.
Isn’t Ray Nagin one of the candidates?
Good luck to Jindal!
The sheeple of Louisiani would elect a reublican even though the democrats have made the state a desolation? The state is overun with politcal liberal marxists and has been for over a century and it would be a suprise if they would ever learn anything and elect an honest person. It is just not their way, like all liberals their quest for polical marxism allows no independent thinking or wisdom. They have been corrupt for years and will probalbly go down corrupt.
Is someone going to do an election results thread?
No Nagin played the game, but never filed when the deadline passed.... Just played the ever loving and adoring media
All of my TV channels are from Shreveport,LA. I get to see all the political ads and the smear campaign his opponents are using trying to defeat him. I would vote for him if I could.
Well within the margin of Democrat vote fraud.
A fairly vituperative comment, Kindred. I’ve lived here 30 years and it’s the type of government, and the bureaucracy that is imbedded in the state that’s corrupt, not the Republican party.
Comments such as yours belong on the left side of the aisle.
Paint us all with the same brush? You think we ALL live in New Orleans? Think we all have webbed feet and live in some stinking bayou and go to charity hospitals for our health care? Think we all married our cousins and and take the family pirogue out on dates?
Get your head outta your 4th point of contact and think. The reason Jindal lost the last time was last minute smears and a definite dital darkening of the candidate as well as ads excoriating Bobby for his actions against the DHH system that were later proven to be false. The Democrats made the common man AFRAID he’d lose health insurance and it tipped the scales.
He lost Northern Louisiana because he rarely campaigned here unlike his opponents, was not well-known and had little appeal to the common folks up here. Never made the effort unlike this time.
The consequences were that we got Blanco and 4 years of incompetence and continued misery due to the fear tactics of the Democratic machine.
Hopefully, this time, we’ll have enough people who can look past their party affiliations.
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