Friday, November 21, 2003

Why Jindal Lost   [Rod Dreher]

I'm getting lots of feedback onmy piece from
earlier in the week, deconstructing the Jindal loss in Louisiana. Some
people insist that it was a race thing, pure and simple. I suppose it could
be, but where are the data to back that conclusion up? You might chalk it up
to the "Wilder Effect," in which white voters tell pollsters they're going
to vote for a minority candidate, but actually vote for the white one. If
that were the case, though, Jindal's poll numbers would have held firm
during the last week, and he would have received a shock on election day. In
fact, his numbers collapsed steadily on the last week of the campaign, when
Blanco's powerful commercial (featuring a Republican doctor in a wheelchair
saying he was voting Blanco because Jindal is a heartless technocrat) began
running in the state, and went unanswered by the Jindal camp.



One reader writes: Your analysis on the governor's race is right on. We
were all gung-ho for Bobby here in Lake Charles - he even made a stop a few
houses down before the primary - then the wheels came off the last week.
That ad with the guy in the wheelchair was never contradicted and ran all
the time, meanwhile Bobby is still running his feel-good, everybody likes
him ad that's been seen for two months. I saw the Vern Kennedy polls and
felt it slipping away. The margin in Orleans Parish was about the margin of
victory - running even everywhere else is not good enough.
On the other hand, this from another reader: I'm from Lafayette and a
Republican voter. The racist backlash was out in full force in rural
southern Louisiana as well. The Parishes (including Blanco's home and mine,
Lafayette) with more educated and higher income voters are the only ones
that backed Jindal. My family is spread out around South Louisiana and I
have heard some things that make me consider leaving. A great many of the
comments made by Cajun people I know had similar feel to them. I will give
you one quote I heard on election day. "Well I sure as hell wasn't going to
vote for no &%$# foreigner for Governor. A relative of mine relayed to me a
conversation where his the mayor of his town said, "There is no way I'm
voting for a *&^%$ foreigner". A MAYOR, AN ELECTED OFFICIAL! And they wonder
why anyone with an education is leaving the state.

11/21 12:47 PMShare