No Politics as Usual With These 2 Running in Louisiana
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
HREVEPORT, La., Oct. 26 — Louisiana voters are used to hearing awful things said about their politicians. The nasty labels over the years have included crook, demagogue, extortionist, swindler, incompetent and Nazi-loving leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
But it is not every year that a candidate dismisses her opponent, in essence, as a babe in the woods.
That is one of the charges being leveled in this year's testy race for governor by Lt. Gov. Kathleen B. Blanco, a Democrat, against her Republican opponent, Piyush Jindal, who is all of 32, and just over half her age.
At a debate in Shreveport on Oct. 24, Ms. Blanco, 60, ripped into Mr. Jindal, saying that as the state's cost-slashing secretary of health and hospitals, a job he won at age 24, "he made decisions he was too young to know the implications of."
She drove home the point before the Baton Rouge Press Club: "The ship of state doesn't come equipped with training wheels."
Ms. Blanco's angle of attack underscores the strangeness of the race. Louisianians have never had a choice like this for governor. One is a woman, a seventh-generation Cajun and mother of six. The other, the son of immigrants from New Delhi, is the first Indian-American to get this far anywhere in state politics, let alone in the Deep South.
And the simple fact that both candidates are seen as squeaky clean is already helping renovate the image of a state infamous for dirty politics.
The election, a runoff between the two top vote-getters from the Oct. 4 primary, is less than three weeks away. Polls show the race is a dead heat. Each day it gets more snippy.
The candidates have been stumping across the state, holding competing news conferences about health care and battling intensely for the crucial black vote in New Orleans.
Ms. Blanco has been hammering Mr. Jindal's record on health care, equating it with bureaucratic cruelty. "When you crunch numbers," she said in the Shreveport debate, "you crunch people."
Mr. Jindal, who is known as Bobby, presents himself without apology as an efficient technocrat and has responded with a wave of television advertisements that attack Ms. Blanco for attacking him.
"Haven't we had enough of the old-time politics of the past?" he asks in a commercial.
In the debate, he repeated his campaign promise that he would not sling mud.
"I'm a problem-solver," he said, "not a politician."
Ms. Blanco hails from Lafayette, in bayou country. But that is precisely where Mr. Jindal is running the strongest. With barbecues, rallies and visits to schools, Mr. Jindal has blazed a trail through rural areas, trumpeting his conservative views and winning the support of the same, mostly white parishes that 12 years ago sent David Duke, a former Klansman, into a runoff for governor. Bumper stickers here say "Bubbas for Bobby."
Ms. Blanco, who holds many views that are as conservative as Mr. Jindal's, has responded with her own rural push, saying she also wants the votes of the Bubbas, "and the Bubbettes, too."
In another twist, most people of color are lining up against Mr. Jindal.
Almost a third of voters in Louisiana are African-American. Many say that even though Mr. Jindal has dark skin, he seems to represent the views of white conservatives, including his antipathy for affirmative action.
"Bobby is being showcased," said Robert Pierce, a New Orleans political activist who supports Ms. Blanco. "He may be a person of color. But he doesn't identify with people of color."
Still, Mr. Jindal has pushed hard for black support. Last week he won the endorsement of the Black Organization for Leadership Development, one of the old-line African-American political action committees of New Orleans and a longtime supporter of Democratic candidates. "Yeah, Bobby may be conservative. But we don't have a choice," said Jim Singleton, a member of BOLD who noted that Ms. Blanco was conservative, too. "This election is not about social issues. It's about who can make things happen."
Louisiana, like many other states, is teetering on a financial precipice. The top issue is jobs. In recent years, the state has lost auto factories to Mississippi and big business to Texas.
Enter Mr. Jindal, the problem-solver.
In an interview, he rolled out, in eye-glazing detail, his plans to phase out manufacturing taxes, privatize road maintenance and expand ports to capture growing trade with Latin America.
"We export way too many raw products," Mr. Jindal said, ticking off commodities like timber, oil and seafood. "We need to realign training programs to shift into more value-added industries."
For health care, he proposes more outpatient services, more community health care centers and a constitutional amendment to protect medical dollars from budget cuts.
The prince of bullet points, Mr. Jindal has a seven-point plan to fight coastal erosion and a 10-point plan to improve schools.
Born in Baton Rouge, Mr. Jindal made his first shrewd political move at age 4. He changed his name from Piyush to Bobby. ("From `The Brady Bunch,' " he explained.) At 15, he took another step toward assimilation, turning away from the Hinduism of his parents; he soon became a Roman Catholic.
A graduate of Brown University (4.0 grade point average in public policy and biology) and a Rhodes scholar, Mr. Jindal worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company for a year and a half. Then he was asked by the Republican governor, Mike Foster, to run the state's ailing Department of Health and Hospitals, putting him in charge of a $5.6 billion budget and 13,500 employees.
At 27, he became president of the state university system, a gold-watch type of job traditionally handed to graying public servants. At 29, he was appointed by President Bush as assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services and moved to Washington
"Bobby's a rare type," Mr. Foster said. "He's a genius — a genius with common sense."
In Louisiana's open primary, which drew many candidates, Mr. Jindal entered the race in the spring with a face few people knew. Ms. Blanco, as lieutenant governor, enjoyed strong name recognition.
Mr. Jindal quickly established his conservative credentials, and with debating skills and fund-raising acumen he rose fast, especially for someone who had never held elected office. On Christian radio stations, he spoke out against abortion, even in cases of rape, and against gun control, even for assault weapons. He trumpeted patriotism, belting out at a recent event, "This election is not about whether you're white, black, brown or yellow. It's about being red, white and blue!"
Mr. Jindal finished first among 17 candidates, with 33 percent of the vote, compared with 18 percent for Ms. Blanco. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 57 percent to 23 percent in Louisiana, though most analysts say party affiliation has become ever more of an anachronism in the increasingly conservative South.
No doubt, Ms. Blanco lacks the Rhodes scholar polish of Mr. Jindal. But she has her own story. She is a pioneer and a feminist, though she would never, ever use that word.
For years, she was a stay-at-home mother and former schoolteacher from southern Louisiana when she took a job as a supervisor for the 1980 Census. She reached out to women like herself for help, housewives looking for something to do. It turned out to be a big moment.
"Women I never met would come up to me and say I changed their lives," Ms. Blanco said in an interview with moist eyes.
Her emerging network helped her win election to the state House of Representatives in 1983 and then a seat on the formerly all-male Public Service Commission, a powerful body that regulates utilities. She then served two terms as lieutenant governor, during which she helped propel tourism into a $9 billion industry in the state. She opposes gun control and abortion, though with exceptions. She touts many of the same fiscal ideas as Mr. Jindal, though with less emphasis on numbers and more emphasis on people.
The runoff is Nov. 15 and a recent poll has put the race at a statistical tie.
Susan Howell, a political scientist at the University of New Orleans, said the race is coming down to how much change Louisianians want.
"Bobby represents the most radical shift," Dr. Howell said. "Blanco is the comfort candidate." |
