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| Jindal: The Oxford-trained whiz kid (shown with his wife and son) is Louisiana's new governor. Tim Mueller/AP |
Coup in the bayou: New Governor Jindal promises change in Louisiana
Inaugurated Monday, he promises to clean up corruption.
from the January 15, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
Jindal has some advantages over previous reformers. He inherits the largest class of freshman legislators in state history and a $2 billion budget surplus.
Jindal has a "powerful mandate," says Michael Kurtz, a retired history professor in Hammond, La. "He's a fresh face, kind of a do-gooder type.... He's a whiz kid."
Jindal plans to call two special legislative sessions soon: One to implement ethics reform to curb the influence of lobbyists in Baton Rouge; the second to reform the state's tax structure, which critics call regressive because it's focused on sales taxes. Louisianans see both as crucial to turning around the fortunes of the state.
Outsiders may take a lot of convincing, however.
When Jindal met with President Bush after his election in October, Bush said, "So, Bobby, are we going to able to send money down there to rebuild without it ending up in somebody's pocket?"
Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Jindal parlayed an Oxford education into a job with McKinsey & Co. in Washington. He has worked for the Department of Health and Human Services and also ran the state's university system before becoming a US representative, on the Republican ticket, all by age 36.
Connecting with rural voters
In the process, Jindal learned to slow his machine-gun speaking style and connect to the rural Anglo-Protestant voters, mostly in northern Louisiana, who once voted in force for KKK leader and gubernatorial candidate David Duke. "It was a huge hurdle," says one aide.
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