[StBernard] Jindal makes second bid for governor

[Westley Annis]

Jindal makes second bid for governor
Posted by Catpital bureau September 19, 2007 8:27PM
By Jan Moller 
Capital bureau 

WASHINGTON -- Bobby Jindal is most often described as a whiz kid, a policy
wonk or a political prodigy with the kind of drive and ambition you long for
in your kids but loathe in co-workers. 

A rising star on the fast track. 

But on a hectic Tuesday in late July, Jindal was just another congressman
with more appointments than time in the day. There was a hearing on
hurricane preparedness, several radio interviews, a visit with a Girl Scout
troop from Jefferson Parish -- all interspersed with a series of floor votes
on everything from congressional ethics to farm policy. 

The frantic pace is nothing new for Jindal, the front-runner in the
Louisiana governor's race who has seemingly been in a hurry since Gov. Mike
Foster tapped him to head the state Department of Health and Hospitals at
the age of 24. 

Now 36 and making his second bid for the governorship that eluded him four
years ago, Jindal is hoping voters see him less as the brilliant soloist and
more as the hard-working team player. He notes that he was one of just 19
Republicans to cross party lines to vote for a $286 billion farm bill and
that he was instrumental in helping Louisiana gain a share of offshore
energy royalties, working with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who shepherded the
measure through the Senate. 

Those actions fit perfectly into Jindal's self-styled image as a practical
problem-solver who eschews partisanship to get things done. 



In his campaign stops across the state, Jindal often compares the partisan
wrangling in Congress to his young children fighting over their toys. "They
don't care who wins, as long as the other one loses," he says. 

And while many see a bright future for Jindal in Congress, for now, he is
432nd among 435 House members in a recent "power ranking" by the nonpartisan
Congress.org. The ranking is attributed to Republicans' minority status and
to the widespread expectation that Jindal could soon be leaving Washington
for the state's highest office. 

Cooperative effort 

Jindal says he has been able to remain effective under Democratic rule,
citing amendments he has added to various spending bills among his recent
accomplishments. 

"If you want to be taken seriously, you'd better have some kind of
bipartisan support," Jindal said. 

Those who have watched Jindal's career believe that his years in the House
could serve him well if he gets elected governor, giving him much-needed
political experience to go with his policy expertise. 

"I think the man who ran DHH and the man we have today has really grown,"
said Jack Finn, president of the Metropolitan Hospital Council of New
Orleans, who worked closely with Jindal at the state health department. "I'm
not saying he was a bad secretary. I'm saying the man has matured with
experience, and I think he maybe has become a little more flexible." 

Jindal said his time on Capitol Hill has taught him the value of
coalition-building and the importance of setting priorities. 

"The governor, to be successful, has to pick priorities, invest a lot of his
or her capital in them, but has also got to understand there are going to be
other issues," Jindal said. "There has to be times when you allow
legislative latitude." 

Immigrant roots 

Jindal's rapid rise is a familiar story by now to many in Louisiana. Born
Piyush Jindal in Baton Rouge to parents who had immigrated from India just
months earlier so his mother could attend graduate school at Louisiana State
University, he adopted the name "Bobby" at age 4 from the name of a TV
character on "The Brady Bunch." 

After zipping through high school and earning top grades at Brown
University, he rejected offers to study medicine and law in favor of
pursuing a master's degree in health care policy at Oxford University, as a
Rhodes Scholar. Along the way he converted to Catholicism from his parents'
Hindu faith, an experience he frequently relates to Christian congregations
throughout the state. 

Returning from England, Jindal took a six-figure job as a health care
consultant for McKinsey & Co., in Washington, D.C., only to get his big
break after Foster was elected governor in 1995 and began looking for
someone to take over the troubled state health department. 

With a recommendation from U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, whom he had
served as a congressional intern, Jindal applied for the job and -- to the
surprise of many observers -- got it. 

Fighting fraud 

Months before his 25th birthday, Jindal took over the $4 billion,
13,000-employee department beset by scandal and overspending during Gov.
Edwin Edwards' final term, and which was facing the loss of hundreds of
millions of dollars in federal Medicaid dollars. 

With a focus on combating fraud, Jindal steered the agency through a period
of retrenchment that led to the elimination of about 1,000 jobs and lower
reimbursements to some health care providers. 

While Jindal won widespread praise for bringing the department's finances
under control, some recall that his inexperience in the political arena was
a liability. 

"He was more used to the debate on an academic basis," said Sen. Tom
Schedler, R-Mandeville. "In the Legislature, that's not always the case." 

His stint as health secretary was followed by a succession of jobs usually
befitting someone much older: executive director of a federal Medicare
commission at 27, president of the University of Louisiana System at 28, and
undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at 30. 

First gubernatorial race 

Two years after joining the Bush administration, he publicly turned his
attention to politics, and decided to shoot for the governorship. Starting
out as a blip in the polls but with tacit backing from Foster, his campaign
quickly gained momentum against a field of far more experienced candidates.
By early October he had finished first in the primary and was facing a
runoff against Democrat Kathleen Blanco. 

But his inexperience -- and the budget cuts he presided over as health
secretary -- would come back to haunt him. Opponents' ads portrayed him as a
heartless bureaucrat more concerned with numbers than the people they
represent, and Jindal's failure to respond effectively is cited as one of
the main reasons he lost the election. 

"Those cuts really became his Waterloo in the first run for the seat he now
seeks," said Schedler, who thinks the criticism of Jindal's health care
record was unfair. "I thought he did as commendable a job as anyone could do
under adverse conditions." 

After losing the race by 4 percentage points, Jindal moved his family from
Baton Rouge to Kenner, where he won the congressional seat that became
vacant when GOP Rep. David Vitter sought a promotion to the U.S. Senate. 

While Jindal became an active member of Congress from the start, getting
elected president of his freshman class, he also never stopped acting like a
statewide candidate, frequently traveling outside his suburban district
while on break from his congressional duties. 

Learning from experience 

Jindal appears determined to avoid a repeat of the mistakes he made four
years ago. Attacks by his opponents are now answered rapidly, and he is no
longer afraid to sling a few arrows himself. He has paid particular
attention to voters in North Louisiana, who failed to turn out for him in
the same numbers as for Foster. 

So far, the efforts appear to be paying off. 

On a recent campaign swing through the poverty-stricken Delta region, he was
greeted like an old friend by the 75 or so people who showed up to hear his
call for stronger ethics laws and a clampdown on frivolous government
spending. 

"He's been here several times bringing the message to the people, the small
rural parishes," Vidalia Mayor Hyram Copeland said. "We don't have that
opportunity a lot of times." 

In other ways, however, Jindal remains the same candidate as in 2003, laying
out multipoint plans on everything from ethics and crime prevention to
budget policy and economic development. 

Jindal says he believes that the state's post-hurricane economy will
continue to grow for several years, bringing in enough revenue to finance
his priorities, such as increasing highway funding and accelerating business
tax cuts, without requiring major cuts. 

On health care, his signature issue, Jindal said he supports the
construction of a new teaching hospital in New Orleans to replace Charity
Hospital, but said he questions the 484-bed size that has been proposed by
Louisiana State University. 

While Jindal said the state needs to maintain a health care safety net for
the uninsured, he also favors using some of the Medicaid dollars that
finance care in the Charity Hospital System to help the working poor buy
health insurance. 

Social conservative 

In his stump speech, which is laced with anecdotes about bureaucratic snafus
and inefficiencies after Katrina, he focuses on issues that have a
bipartisan cast, such as government ethics and accountability. 

While Jindal crossed party lines to support the farm bill, a boost in the
minimum wage and implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, he
has mostly toed the party line. He remains true to his conservative roots on
social issues, opposing abortion in all circumstances, embryonic stem-cell
research and gun control. 

According to Congressional Quarterly, Jindal voted with Republicans 81
percent of the time this year, and 88 percent a year ago. 

In some cases, he has been forced into some awkward choices. Earlier this
year, for example, he voted against a spending bill that contained $8.9
billion for hurricane recovery but also included a Democrat-supported
timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq that was opposed by the Bush
administration. 

And earlier this summer, Jindal successfully added $2.5 million to an
Interior Department spending bill to combat the Gulf of Mexico's "dead
zone," only to vote against the bill when it came up for final passage
because it was too expensive. 

"I would argue that our state is ready for big change," Jindal said. "One of
the worst things we can do is be incremental and just continue the status
quo. It's not often you get this kind of a chance to change a state." 

Jan Moller can be reached at jmoller at timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5207.