Jindal says he refused possible VP run

Gov. Bobby Jindal showed some great political instincts when he turned down an offer to be considered running mate to Sen. John McCain's recently unsuccessful Republican bid for the presidency. If he is interested in further national political advancement, he'll have to keep up his perspicacity in a different way over the next few years.

Certainly it's correct to muse that one or more of the next great political leaders will come from the party's gubernatorial ranks. The chances of the party retaining the White House went nearly to zero with the nomination of McCain, and also reclaiming control of Congress when GOP Congressional leaders continued to be more concerned with power than popular policy, with Jindal accurately diagnosing the problem: drifting away from its "roots" of conservative principles and limited government, allowing big government to become their focus which spawned the temptation for corrupt behavior. The party became perceived more of an ill-defined echo than a real choice compared to the empty vessel/hidden agenda strategy of the Democrats.

New leadership more conservative and less enamored with big government for the party finally looks to be emerging in Congress, but it will take time for these figures to develop national electoral constituencies and they must fight getting steamrolled by the new Democrat majority. In the meantime, governors have the stages and opportunity to display their mettle to the public. And, as has been discussed elsewhere, Jindal will have plenty of opportunity (unlikely by choice) to show his abilities.

In retrospect, Jindal accurately seems to have gauged the impact of being on the McCain ticket if he brought any political criteria into that calculus. Losing vice presidential candidates usually don't have much of a future on the national stage, and in this case he would have been tied onto someone whose electoral philosophy was the opposite of that needed to defeat a weak opponent trying to ride favorable political tides. Now all this baggage belongs to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, although she deftly used the opportunity to demonstrate she did have the correct philosophy for victory in these times and did prove she could withstand everything the Democrats and media allies could throw at her.

But whether these strengths would be enough for her to overcome the stigma of the McCain candidacy is another matter. Her presumed frontrunner status over Jindal may have become too impugned by this association and the job the media did on her. Jindal to some …
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Education financing overhaul proposed

The idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal has to reward colleges on the basis of results which in part can be measured by graduations is a good one. But if not done correctly and in isolation of other considerations, this reform not only will not produce better-educated students, but may produce the opposite.

Presently, the financing formula for state universities inputs the number of students. This creates incentives to get students enrolled, but does not address their successful completion of degree programs. While any education is good, the credentialing afforded by a degree makes it most desirable to have students complete them, and to emphasize to universities' efforts to facilitate this.

But at the same time, graduation rate is an inexact measure that can punish some universities and degrade the nature of collegiate education if done improperly. It must be recognized that many students start their academic careers at one institution and finish at another and incorporate the realities of placement choices. This especially is true for the state's urban universities of Southern University - New Orleans, the University of New Orleans, and Louisiana State University Shreveport all of which are not the flagship universities in their systems. For example, only 26.3 percent of the student cohort that started at LSUS in Fall, 2002 graduated with a baccalaureate from any state school by 2007, with about a quarter dropping out after their first year.

One reason why is that some area students use LSUS as a starter school until they can gain entrance or afford their preferred choice, some of which are not a Louisiana public university. Therefore, there may be some students graduating that are not tracked accurately, so any measure who have to account for this. Also, because of lower admission standards (essentially none except equivalency of a high school diploma if older than 24, at LSUS for example), weaker students disproportionately will attend these schools, increasing the likelihood of their inability to remain academically eligible. Finally, disproportionately students who are less interested in college, who typically are poorer-quality students, will attend these schools because of the "free" money given to them courtesy of the Tuition Opportunity Scholarship Program, so any valid measure also must take these factors into consideration.

Worse, even if these are factored into creating valid retention and graduation rate measures, universities may dumb down their level of instruction in order to boost graduation rates. Already we have seen this at the high school level in Louisiana courtesy of the implementation of TOPS - high school teachers becoming increasingly reluctant to give lower grades that could cost a kid a chance at a TOPS award. …
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With disarray, Jindal's value rises

No doubt governors would prefer to be in the shoes of Alaska's Sarah Palin, with a budgetary state surplus especially in these times where a slowing economy that, if they do what they say, will be slowed even further by Democrat control of the federal majoritarian branches which in turn will reduce federal largesse to states. Louisiana's Gov. Bobby Jindal does not have this luxury - which may turn out to elevate his chances for higher political office.

The long-warned bubble economy infused with recovery dollars is coming to an end in Louisiana which will test Jindal's governing ability. Already its looming has forced Jindal into tough decisions, the highest profile of which was his hesitancy to embrace this year's income tax cut which will only start to come to fruition next year. Many more appear to be on the way.

But if he can get the Legislature to handle it with a minimum of pain to the state, he sets himself up as a devastatingly strong candidate for the presidential ticket in 2012 as the worst nightmare for a White House incumbent of Barack Obama. If Obama and Congressional Democrat leaders do what they promised they will do, the country will be in its worst economic shape since the 1970s with a daunting "misery index" and deficits as a percentage of gross domestic product the highest since World War II. Guiding Louisiana to a better economic picture will stand in stark contrast to that.

This is where Jindal would have the edge on today's leading Republican for the 2012 national ticket, Palin, who has show she can govern in good times for her state but not yet the bad ones. Further, to some degree the Democrats aided by the media (who treated the first female vice presidential candidate from a major party Geraldine Ferraro with skepticism, but added outright hostility to coverage of Palin) demonized Palin aided by a narrow time frame which may have created enough of a negative lasting first impression to voters that also could give Jindal the edge.

Of course, Jindal must succeed, which means producing a balanced budget that also shifts priorities to areas that appear both necessary and popular despite an environment of increasing costs in some areas and decreasing revenues. But if he does, the fear he has struck into Democrats ever since he …
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The role of race

In their enthusiasm to validate certain agendas, some observers are (again) using Louisianans' voting behavior as a means by which to attempt to do this. Thus, it is imperative to set the record straight.

Upon observing that, according to exit polls, Sen. Barack Obama improved upon his proportion of white voters in many parts of the country but not in some deep South states such as Louisiana, some argue it was Obama's race (officially mulatto but thought of as black) that primarily explained this. That is, vestiges of racism remained in some white Louisianans who otherwise would have voted for Obama on the basis of other qualities, according to this view.

While such a hypothesis might support a larger ideological view that racism is thereby still too ingrained in American society and therefore would justify activist government to "correct" for it, one obviously very ignored and blatant piece of evidence cannot be admitted by these advocates for it to stand: last year, an overwhelming proportion of white voters in the state touched the screen for a very dark-skinned Gov. Bobby Jindal, even when there were plenty of white alternative candidates.

This points us to the real reason behind much greater white enthusiasm for Jindal than Obama - ideology. Jindal's Republican identification and rhetoric made clear his conservative credentials, and although Obama intentionally muddied his liberalism with generic bromides, this and his Democrat label clarified to all but the most causal voter that he was liberal. White voters in the state are overwhelmingly conservative (exit polling shows of all voters 42 percent call themselves conservative and only 16 percent liberal; half of the latter figure is probably nonwhites) and these elections have shown that they will respond accordingly if given at least minimal amounts of cues about candidates.

While undoubtedly a few whites will harbor racial prejudice in their voting behavior, the notion that it is widespread or generally significant to an election outcome cannot be sustained by the facts (as I demonstrated elsewhere), at least in Louisiana. Give Obama Jindal's rhetoric and not only would he have done much better in the state, he would have won; paint Obama paler and little would have changed. Until analysts understand this basic truism, their conjectures on voting behavior in the Pelican State largely will be useless.

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"Katrina effect" didn't hurt Landrieu's bid

Sen. Mary Landrieu was quick to assert that the "Katrina effect" appeared nonexistent in her reelection bid. She and others should have concentrated more on the unusual reasons why it did not appear to exist.

First, we must recognize that the "effect" - that depopulation of New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 had disproportionately affected blacks who in turn disproportionately vote for Landrieu or other Democrat candidates - is there to happen. After all, the 7/1/2007 census estimate put Orleans Parish's population at 239,124, of which 146,631 or 61.3 percent were black, compared to the 7/1/2005 estimate of 453,726 of which 304,268 or 67.1 percent were black. (Around the time of her last Senate race, on 7/1/2002 estimated population was 472,085 of which 317,672 or 67.3 percent were black).

But registration figures alter the picture considerably. Using information related to her last Senate contest, 2002, Orleans had 298,776 people registered to vote of which 187,289 or 62.3 percent were black, while as of last month there were 278,677 registrants of which 175,431 or 63 percent were black. The contrast is even greater when viewing the 2005 second quarter numbers - 299,369 total voters of which 189,628 or 63.3 percent black.

In other words, Orleans Parish has moved from a situation where, as a proportion of the population blacks were under-registered, now they are over-registered compared to whites. So, even if absolute numbers have dropped, they've dropped in all categories so Landrieu and other Democrats would not be disproportionately harmed, and of those remaining, Democrats now actually have picked up a small advantage relative to where they were.

However, this brings up another astonishing point. Even if we conceded that by October of this year Orleans had 324,000 residents and assuming that of the 125,000 or so missing relative to 2005 that, using historical data, 85,000 of them would have been registered to vote, registrations have dropped only about 20,000 from 2002 but turnout for Tuesday's election for the Senate race of 141,968 was almost 10,000 more than for the 2002 runoff and over 15,000 for the 2002 primary. In other words, in 2002 registrations were 63.3 percent of the population of which 44.4 percent of the registrants and 28.1 percent of the population voted, while in 2008 registrations were 86 percent of the population of which 50.9 percent of the registrants and 43.8 percent of the population voted.

Since registration changes can lag actual population changes by a few years, the relatively small drop in registrations is understandable. And it's also the case that the voting-age-eligible proportion of the population rose from about 70.6 percent in 2002 to …
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