FRANKLINTON, La., Oct. 17 — An Oxford-educated son of immigrants from India is virtually certain to become the leading candidate for Louisiana’s next governor in Saturday’s primary election. It would be an unlikely choice for a state that usually picks its leaders from deep in the rural hinterlands and has not had a nonwhite chief executive since Reconstruction.
But peculiar circumstances have combined to make Representative Bobby Jindal, a conservative two-term Republican, the overwhelming favorite. Analysts predict Mr. Jindal, 36, could get more than 50 percent of the vote in the open primary, thus avoiding a November runoff and becoming the nation’s first Indian-American governor. If he fails to win a majority, he would face the next-highest vote getter in the runoff.
Louisiana Democrats are demoralized, caught between the perception of post-hurricane incompetence surrounding their standard bearer, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who is not running for re-election, and corruption allegations against senior elected officials like William J. Jefferson, the congressman from New Orleans.
Leading Democrats begged off the governor’s race, and Mr. Jindal’s opponents are from the second tier, trailing so badly in polls that Mr. Jindal has ignored most of the scheduled debates among candidates, leaving the challengers to take grumbling verbal shots at his empty chair.
The prize is not necessarily an enviable one: Louisiana is the nation’s poorest state, measured by per capita income; one of its unhealthiest; the worst in infant mortality; and the least educated. It is last in attracting new college-educated workers. Tens of thousands of people remain displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the police department in New Orleans still operates largely out of trailers, and neighborhoods are still trying to rebuild.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/us/19louisiana.html...
Any Predictions ?
