At the beginning of last week, with the Louisiana gubernatorial run-off election set for Saturday, Republican Bobby Jindal had a comfortable lead in the polls. Though his opponent, Kathleen Blanco, picked up momentum in late polling, many prognosticators (including Larry Sabato, RealClearPolitics, and your correspondent) thought that the 32-year-old, born in Baton Rouge to Indian immigrants and sporting an impressive resume, would still pull it off. He didn't. What happened? A Rhodes scholar, Jindal was Secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals at 24; he went on to stints running the state university system and shaping Medicare policy...
