Posted on 10/22/2007 7:22:39 PM PDT by balch3
Candidates for state agriculture commissioner and Louisiana’s attorney general spent Sunday preparing for the Nov. 17 runoff. Democrat incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, 72, was forced into a runoff with 48-year-old state Rep. Mike Strain, R-Covington, who has served in the Legislature since 1999.
Attorney General Charles Foti, a 69-year-old Democrat, was ousted Saturday after coming in third in three-way race.
SNIP
But Republican Governor-elect Bobby Jindal, who won Saturday’s primary election with 54 percent of the vote statewide, said Sunday that he would not endorse or help the Republican challengers in the two remaining races.
“I have ‘R’ next to my name but for me the campaign is over,” Jindal said.
Democrat Buddy Caldwell of Tallulah, 61, a longtime district attorney for East Carroll, Madison and Tensas parishes in northeast Louisiana, is in the run-off with 41-year-old former Congressional aide Royal Alexander, a Shreveport Republican.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2theadvocate.com ...
He's going to be governor, and he's going to have to work with the ag commissioner and attorney general, no matter who wins. In a state where most of the elected officials are still Dems.
I don't follow LA politics well enough to know whether the Dems in those two races are way ahead, but if Jindal is bowing out of the campaign to avoid hacking off two guys he will need to carry out his policies, I see that as a sign that he's more interested in governing than in campaigning, and I don't see that as a bad thing.
He narrowly lost to Blanco in the last gubernatorial race, despite winning the endorsement of the Times-Picayune; then he ran for the House and worked with the rest of the Louisiana delegation post-Katrina in seeking aid for the state. He's hardly been an obscure figure.
I think there are certain landmarks in a (still relatively) young man's life. There's the day you realize that this month's Playboy Playmate is younger than you. Then you realize that a favorite actor is younger than you. Then a sports star who's younger than you. Then a sports star described as a "wily veteran" who's younger than you.
Bobby Jindal is the first governor younger than me.
It's wild speculation at this point, when he hasn't even taken his new office yet, but when you have a governor at age 36, you've gotta think that he has the momentum and plenty of time to grab at the big brass ring and run for president. If re-elected, after two terms as governor, he'd only be 44. He could then run for the Senate, and after a term there, he'd only be 50. That's on the young side for a presidential candidate.
You're going to hear more out of this guy. I'd bet on it. And if he can get Louisiana straightened out -- to whatever degree -- he'll have a solid record to run on.
"Creoles of color" are part of the cultural gumbo of Louisiana. Pre-civil-war, the free-wheeling Frenchmen acknowledged their mixed-race offspring, and those who had enough money sent them to Europe to be educated.
Jim Crow forced those Creoles, taught Western classical music, into the same category as ex-slaves and their descendants, raised in African musical traditions. Heat and stir, and you get jazz. It could only have happened there.
Once a Republican wins, it’s every man for himself. Jindal will try to “reach out” to the opposition, and they will again bite his hand, and he will be “shocked”. It’s the same ol’, same ol’. They can’t learn even if they are Rhodes scholars. He will try to “save” his “political capital”, but such capital is squandered if not used when the politician is initially strong. They can’t learn, as I said, even if they are Rhodes scholars. Now, he did help some congressional candidates earlier. He probably knows that Caldwell is a heavy favorite for attorney general anyway, and he expects Strain to beat Odom.
I liked Jindal until he made some critical comments during Katrina. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember being taken aback.
Your knowledge of politics then must be ZERO.
Almost anyone who had paid attention to national politics in the past 5 years knows Jindal is a rising Republican star with strong potential.
Crist has screwed us like that in Florida.
Nice! Perhaps he should run for Pres!
New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area
7/1/2005 Census - 1,313,787
http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/metro_general/2006/CBSA-EST2006-01.csv
On the other hand, the census only dropped 300K by the following year, so unless there was a mass white migration INTO N.O. post-Katrina, there’s no way the net exodus of black voters was anywhere near 600K.
That’s funny, because he nearly won the U.S. Senate several years ago, and has been in the U.S. House of Representatives since, where he has widely been considered a rising star for some time.
The only reason I can guess why you haven’t heard much about him would be the same reason that Condi Rice, Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas aren’t made icons of Black History month: the news media hopes people won’t notice that Republicans actually like people of other races.
Jindal 2016!
That won't work here. Or in any other state, for that matter. Dave Treen 'way back in '79 tried the "can't we all get along" tactic. It was a spectacular failure and Edwin Edwards laughed all the way back into office in '83.
Buddy Roemer tried the "middle way" after he switched to GOP. Another fiasco.
If Jindal thinks he can stay "out of the political fray" when he occupies the most powerful politcal office in the state where the Governor has more power than in any other, then he's mistaken.
If he has any hope of being effective, he will have to have a legislature made up of like-minded politicians. It works no other way. It never has and never will.
Well, I don’t know what all is included in the “New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area”, but the city of New Orleans has well under one half of the population you quote there.
According to Wiki:
Population (2000)
- City 484,674
The ballpark number I’ve heard mentioned is that Louisiana lost 100K Democrat voters since Katrina.
I don’t mean to encourage such vacant speculation, but:
Jindal won the most votes in the first round of his 2003 race for Governor, 33-18. (Oops, I previously just wrote Senator in another post.) He was endorsed by the outgoing Governor, Mike Foster, and many prominent Democrats, including NO Mayor Ray Nagin, and became the heavy favorite, but lost the general, including several heavily conservative districts. It’s possible he feels some of the good-ole boys failed to support him.
His ACU rating (96%!) shows he is definitely always supportive of conservative positions. But winning the primary election outright was very important, since the Democrats’ fractured opposition would be united in the general election. Yet Georges, a former Republican still running as a conservative, opposed him, almost gaining 2nd place while attacking Jindal for not supporting Sen. Vitter more strongly.
Ironically, Jindal’s appointment makes it safe for Vitter to step down, should he feel the need to, since there will be a Republican in the statehouse to appoint Vitter’s replacement.
>> Bobby is no Arnold. Period. <<
I’m lost... am I in the golf thread or the governor thread? :^D
>> Bobby is no Arnold. Period. <<
I’m lost... am I in the golf thread or the governor thread? :^D
...
Geaux Tiger! :^D
Bump for update.
Sounds like Pennsylvania if you get rid of Philly and Pittsburg.
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