For all the twists and turns of the last year and still to come, what’s not changed about the governor’s race is it’s still Bobby Jindal’s to lose. It’s been that way since shortly after the levees broke. With other Republican hopefuls having changed parties or about to and with more well-known Democrats getting out than getting in, Jindal’s unrivaled political strength has been constant and so far nearly unchallenged.
All that could change, even rapidly, now that the field is set and voters begin to pay attention. But as it stands, Jindal is probably a stronger favorite than any past candidate who was not the incumbent or a former governor since Huey Long in 1928.
Jindal is no Huey Long—for his personal safety he should avoid such comparisons. Yet, in this critical election, the Republican congressman offers a sweeping promise, couched in his thousand points of policy, to fundamentally shift the direction of government that Long set it on 80 years ago and that recent conservative governors have only interrupted. His critics would say he is trying to give back to the moneyed interests what Huey wrestled from them.
The real question, which even many of his supporters aren’t sure about, is does Jindal have the will, strength and wisdom to overcome, even win over, those in the Legislature and bureaucracy who don’t share his vision.
That brings us to the anyone-but-Bobby contingent on the ballot, who will remain so named until one of them rises above the rest and offers a compelling alternative to Jindal.
It has taken some jockeying for them to find their paths to the starting post. Walter Boasso bailed out of the Republican Party earlier this year to try to occupy the void John Breaux declined to fill for the Democrats.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who evidently hasn’t enough to do in his day job, had a grand time leaving everyone—probably himself included—guessing if he would run. The potential danger of being a Democrat “trainwrecked by Nagin” made Republican businessman John Georges switch to independent when he qualified last week.
The most consistent of them has been Foster Campbell, who embraces the historic values of the Democratic Party, but he has the least resources and is only now introducing himself and his plan in TV ads.
While those campaigns were taking shape, Jindal was building and fine-tuning a statewide organization with broader and deeper support than he enjoyed four years ago. Unlike last time, he is the known quantity, the only candidate to have run statewide.
The challenge for his opponents, who start roughly from the same position, is to introduce themselves to voters and favorably distinguish themselves from Jindal in the next few weeks. Then one has to separate from the pack with enough momentum to energize more Democrats and independents to go to the polls and force a runoff, at which point it’s a whole new game.
Jindal’s opponents already have begun to draw distinctions based more on character and leadership skills than on issues, which is a most interesting, even historic, aspect of this election. Not just Jindal, but all the major candidates promise a sharp, even radical, departure from the status quo, whether to the right or the left. Not even the Democrats are suggesting building on the strengths of the Blanco administration, though there are some.
Like Jindal, Boasso and Georges claim government is broken and promise to remake it from the ground up.
Democrat Foster Campbell puts forward the biggest idea of the campaign—and goes Long one better—by calling for replacing the income tax with one on imported oil and having a couple of billion dollars a year left over for health care and education.
What makes them all the same is they stand for so much change.
No matter who wins, we could wake up the morning after the election with the feeling that we’re not in Louisiana any more, or at least that some big changes are on the way.
Comments
Post a comment
(Requires free registration.)