Free Republic

<p>BATON ROUGE - Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster will end two scandal-free terms Jan. 12, leaving an eight-year legacy of clean government and improved funding and attention to public schools. But he likely will be remembered for failing to address major problems in health care and missing key economic development opportunities for a state still struggling with intense poverty and joblessness.</p>

<p>BATON ROUGE - For a time in 2003, it looked as though Louisiana voters might jettison old habits and elect a man who looked and sounded different from any previous governor.</p> <p>In the end, old themes reasserted themselves and some traditional trends in Louisiana politics won out. Instead of sending the nation's first Indian-American to the Governor's Mansion - and electing the first nonwhite governor in Louisiana history - voters chose a white career politician whose candidacy echoed that of predecessors.</p>