by
Doug Patton
Louisiana has always been a strange place. This is,
after all, the state that once elected a convicted felon (former Gov.
Edwin Edwards) over former KKK leader David Duke on the strength of the
sentiment expressed on an Edwards bumper sticker: “Vote for the crook.
It’s important.”
The state patterns its justice system on Napoleonic
Law. Its major city sits below sea level. Its history is steeped in a
weird combination of influences: French, Spanish, Catholicism, voodoo.
Over the years, the state has spawned a bizarre parade of corrupt
politicos, from die-hard socialists like Huey and Earl Long to committed
incompetents like Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco — Democrats all.
But something amazing has happened in Louisiana.
Bobby Jindal has been elected governor. Jindal, a 36-year-old Republican
whose Indian parents came to the United States mere months before their
son was born, was raised a Hindu but later converted to Christianity,
becoming a Catholic as a teenager. He is pro-life, pro-family,
conservative to his core and committed to cleaning up the corruption that
has permeated Louisiana politics for at least a hundred years.
This man is the first non-white to be elected
governor of Louisiana since reconstruction, and the first Indian American
to be elected to a governorship in the history of the country. A brilliant
student who went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, Jindal became head of
Louisiana’s Health and Human Services Department at the tender age of 24.
Four years ago, in 2003, Jindal was defeated for governor by Kathleen
Blanco. He went on to win a congressional seat in a landslide in 2004. He
was reelected by an even larger margin (88 percent) in 2006, a supposedly
Democrat year.
So what does Bobby Jindal’s election as Louisiana’s
governor say about the future of GOP politics? As Bill Krystol, editor of
“The Weekly Standard” and a Fox News commentator, has said, this is very
good news for Republicans.
“He’s a very impressive guy,” Krystol said. “It’s
awfully good news for Republicans. Haley Barbour, the Republican governor
of Mississippi, one of the two states worst hit (by Hurricane Katrina), is
going to get reelected with a huge margin, and the other state which had
an incompetent Democratic governor, has now elected a Republican to
replace her. Republicans who make a good case for themselves can do well.”
Republicans who make a good case for themselves can
do well. That statement should be taken to heart by every GOP candidate,
campaign manager, speechwriter, press secretary and consultant running for
any office next year. And the way to make a good case for themselves is to
run as unabashed conservatives.
Ronald Reagan proved that in 1980 when he ran on a
platform of lowering taxes, rebuilding our military and bringing the
Soviet Union to its knees.
George H. W. Bush proved it again when he said,
“Read my lips: no new taxes” in 1988. Too bad he didn’t mean it, which is
why he lost to Bill Clinton in 1992.
Newt Gingrich proved it in 1994 when he led the
Republican Revolution by nationalizing a congressional election, using the
Contract with America as the key to that lopsided victory.
When Republicans controlled the White House, the
U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, they lost the
confidence of the American people. Voters repudiated the party last year
because Republicans had stopped acting like Republicans. The GOP grew
government at a rate dizzying enough to have thoroughly impressed FDR, and
they failed utterly at closing our borders after the worst attack in our
nation’s history.
But the Democrat victory prophesied by every
inside-the-beltway pundit writing or broadcasting is not a foregone
conclusion. Bobby Jindal has proven that voters will give a conservative a
chance to govern if they believe he or she will follow through on the
promises that are made to them.
© Copyright 2007 by Doug Patton
Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has
served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly
columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected
Internet web sites, including Human Events Online,
TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and
state editor. Readers may e-mail him at
dougpatton@cox.net.
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