New Orleans
THE LOUISIANA governor’s race is interesting and nationally important for one reason: Bobby Jindal. He’s the Republican candidate in the November 15 election and is probably the most unconventional major party candidate in the country. Louisiana often produces exotic political creatures like Edwin Edwards and David Duke, both now in jail, or even the current Republican governor Mike Foster, best known for his political incorrectness. But Jindal is as different from them as one could get. Rather than a good old boy or a scoundrel, he’s a 32-year-old policy wonk who’s never before run for office. He’s a graduate of Brown University in Rhode Island and an expert on health care. He’s an Indian American whose parents moved to Baton Rouge just before he was born. And Jindal is a thoroughgoing conservative. It’s a stretch to liken him to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but let’s go there anyway. Both have immigrant backgrounds. Both are Republicans who don’t quite fit the party mold. Both are reformers. Both decided to run not in response to a groundswell, but because they wanted to. Both promise to turn around states in decline, economically and demographically. Schwarzenegger is now governor-elect of California. Jindal has at least a 50-50 chance of winning the Louisiana governorship. If he does, Jindal will join Schwarzenegger as a new Republican star whose emergence reflects an increasingly diverse party.
Yes, there are differences. Schwarzenegger was blessed with an unpopular governor, Democrat Gray Davis, to challenge in a recall election. Not so Jindal. After two terms (which is the limit in this state), Foster remains popular and indeed is Jindal’s most prominent supporter. On his radio show last week, Foster zinged the Democratic candidate, Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Blanco, by suggesting her husband will be the power behind the throne if she’s elected. Jindal was embarrassed by this and renewed his plea for Foster to keep quiet about the campaign. Blanco tried to drum up a sympathy vote by complaining she now has two opponents to run against, Jindal and Foster.
Schwarzenegger had celebrity, but Jindal has an extraordinary life story. His given first name is Piyush, but at age 4 he decided to change it to Bobby. In high school, he abandoned his parents’ Hindu faith and converted to Catholicism. (His father is an engineer, his mother an assistant secretary in the Louisiana state labor department.) By the time he graduated from Baton Rouge High School, Jindal was a Republican. When he got to Brown–an eight-year medical program had attracted him–he naively asked about joining the College Republicans. There was no chapter at Brown. The Republican club Jindal subsequently helped found grew, he says, to 300 members, a surprisingly large membership for a liberal Ivy League school.
His post-Brown career has been dizzying. Instead of pursuing medicine, Jindal studied at Oxford for two years as a Rhodes Scholar, worked the next two years for McKinsey, the business consulting firm, and at age 24 returned to Baton Rouge to take over, at Foster’s urging, the mammoth Department of Health and Hospitals. There, he transformed a $400 million deficit into a $220 million surplus. He soon moved to Washington for a year as executive director of the federal commission on reforming Medicare. One of his bosses was Democratic senator John Breaux of Louisiana, who has endorsed Blanco. Then he took over the University of Louisiana system of colleges for two years before joining the Bush administration in 2001 to draft a Medicare reform plan.
Last February, Jindal was back in Louisiana again, this time announcing for governor. The first poll showed him at a lowly 6 percent but still ahead of two Republicans, Hunt Downer and Jay Blossman. They’d been deemed to have a better chance of coming in first or second in the all-party Louisiana primary on October 4 and making it into the runoff. But Jindal came in first with 33 percent. Blanco finished second with 18 percent.
At first blush, the primary suggested Blanco was favored to be the next governor, if only because Democratic candidates got 57 percent of the vote. But 9 percent went to Randy Ewing, a very conservative Democrat who has since refused to endorse Blanco. And soon Jindal was running neck and neck with her. In two Republican polls last week, Jindal was 5 points ahead. This was partly because of a slightly larger than usual black vote for Jindal. He has captured the endorsement of two black political clubs in New Orleans and a leading black preacher in Shreveport. Jindal’s hope is to get 15 percent of the black vote, enough to all but guarantee victory.
Unlike Schwarzenegger, Jindal has been specific about his plans. He’s pledged not to raise taxes and to eliminate a franchise tax and part of the sales tax. His aim, he says, is to rejuvenate the economy, fix schools, and improve health care, all “with the dollars we’re already spending.” He’s issued lengthy position papers on health care, ethics, economic opportunity, the environment, schools, and religious faith. These were packaged together last week in a glossy 24-page booklet entitled “The Jindal Blueprint for Louisiana–A Bold New Vision.” Most notable is the section on “defending the role of faith and values in our state.” In it, he tells how a friend led him to Christian faith. “Today, my faith in Jesus Christ is central to who I am, and I pray regularly for God’s wisdom in all the parts of my life,” he says.
Jindal says he became a Republican as a teenager for two reasons. In Louisiana, with its history of political corruption, Republicans are the reform party. Also, they’re the champions of opportunity. “I’d seen what great opportunity my father had [in America] as an engineer,” he said in an interview. His mother has succeeded in state government, he said, and “I’m running for governor. This is an amazing country.”
Jindal has two problems. He’s a glib technocrat who’s campaigning on the tepid theme of being a “problem solver.” And Blanco is a likable conservative Democrat who has offended no one in her eight years as lieutenant governor. Like Jindal, she’s pro-life, pro-gun, and anti-tax hike. But she has her own problems. She’s dull and uninspiring, and instead of proposing fresh policies, she promises to convene summits on health care, education, and economic issues after she’s elected. Blanco is worried about low voter turnout, especially among blacks (she got only 18 percent of the black vote in the primary). After a dreary rally on the steps of the capitol in Baton Rouge last week, she said “getting out the vote is our mission right now.”
Blanco represents the status quo in Louisiana. She’s the safe vote, but that’s not necessarily an advantage. Louisiana is the only Southern state with more people leaving than coming in. “Kids I went to high school with don’t live here anymore,” says Jindal. “I want my daughter to grow up in Louisiana.” The state suffers from wounded pride. Louisiana can send a message to the nation, wrote the publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report, Rolfe McCollister Jr: “We will no longer tolerate being the butt of jokes, we are tired of being last on every list, we will not stand by as our best and brightest leave the state, and we are ready to move in a new direction, leaving our sordid past behind. We can send that message loud and clear by electing a 21st-century leader, Bobby Jindal.”
There’s a final similarity between Jindal and Schwarzenegger. President Bush didn’t make an appearance in California on Schwarzenegger’s behalf in the recall campaign, and he’s not likely to come to Louisiana either. Bush is popular here and should win the state easily next year. But his aggressive campaigning last fall against Democratic senator Mary Landrieu left a bad feeling in the state. She won despite Bush’s presence. Jindal may win without it.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
