Rod Dreher: Bobby Jindal in the eye of the storm

Like hundreds of thousands of people, my folks down in south Louisiana spent more than a week without electricity after Hurricane Gustav barreled through.

When New Orleans escaped without much damage, the national media blew out of town. Largely off camera, just short of a million people in Baton Rouge and central Louisiana suffered in the sweltering heat, unable to participate in the modern world.

You think I exaggerate? When my folks just north of Baton Rouge were able to get through on the phone – this was rare – they told me that if you didn't have cash on hand before the storm, you were in trouble. The banks couldn't open, and merchants without electricity could not do business electronically. For more than a week, vast numbers of Louisianians lived in conditions more like 1908 than 2008.

"In all my 74 years, I've never seen anything this bad around here," my father said wearily. "But I tell you what, that Bobby Jindal, he's on top of everything. It's not like Blanco time."

He referred, of course, to the hapless response with which the state's previous governor, Kathleen Blanco, met Katrina. Ms. Blanco was so badly damaged by her poor leadership in the aftermath of the 2005 hellstorm that she didn't even bother to run for re-election. Mr. Jindal, a reform Republican congressman, won handily last year.

The intellectually brilliant, high-achieving conservative was much talked about as a potential running mate for John McCain, but speculation waned as his youth (he's 37) and inexperience (in the governor's office for less than one year) made him a less than ideal choice. It's just as well: Mr. Jindal spent the GOP convention on the hurricane frontlines in Louisiana. This storm tested him like nothing else imaginable.

I'd reverse the ticket. I lived in Baton Rouge for 5 years during the Blank-O and Jindal race and 2 Cat-5 hurricanes. Blank-O and the Rats did a total smear job in the governor's race the day before voting and scared the elderly that Jindal would cut off their healthcare and managed to squeak out a victory (plus, there was probably a racial bias from the sticks and Louisiana is heavily Rat - plus the infamous Ray Nagin’s comment about New Orleans remaining "chocolate" ties into Blank-O’s false hope for handouts to the self-impoverished).

Bobby tore Blank-O apart in every debate. At one point - the format called for each candidate to ask their opponent an unscripted question. The moderator said to Blank-O that it was her turn to ask Mr. Jendal a question. She looked confused and began stammering something totally incomprehensible for an uncomfortable amount of time. Bobby spontaneously stepped in to save the blubbering dolt and said “I’ll ask myself a question”, then asked himself a very relevant and tough question - then proceeded to give a stellar answer before either the moderator or Blank-O knew what was going on.

During the Katrina chaos, she sounded like the school teacher she once was - publically scolding the looters and thugs in New Orleans after the Katrina crisis (imagine the voice of a whiney old frumpy school teacher) - “You very naughty people. Shame on you. Stealing from others is not being a good citizen. You must stop this kind of behavior or it will make you feel bad about yourself.”

Jindal is an exceptionally bright, principled, determined, and tough individual with solid ideas. He has more total national, international, and executive experience then Palin. He comes from an energy and refining-rich region that's also a major sea port / thoroughfare for international trade. He's a proven reformer of ingrained political corruption and arrogance. But, with McCain / Palin in office for 8 years, time will tell.

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