bobby jindal

Ahead of US President George W Bush's visit to India, an influential Congress delegation that includes Indian American Congressman Bobby Jindal is here to get a taste of the economic transformation taking place in India and its rising global status.

Bobby Jindal, Republican Congressman from Louisiana, is in India to create a positive buzz about the India-US civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement and the resolve of the Bush administration to push the deal through Congress, diplomatic sources said.

The 34-year-old Jindal, whose parents migrated from Punjab and who narrowly lost the 2003 gubernatorial race in Louisiana, is part of a bipartisan 10-member delegation to guide other Congressmen who are relatively new to India.

The Congressional delegation met Indian MPs under the aegis of the India-US Parliamentary Forum Friday morning. They are expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discuss an array of bilateral matters. Important Congressmen who are part of the delegation include Republican Paul Gilmore, who heads the delegation, and Democrat Jerry Costello.

The delegation was to be headed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, but he couldn't make it at the last minute.
Chandigarh, Oct 21 (IANS) With Bobby Jindal's election as governor of the US state of Louisiana, it was celebration time in his ancestral village Maler Kotla in Punjab as his relatives and others danced to the tunes of bhangra and distributed sweets.

"We are really proud that Bobby has won the governor's race," an excited Gulshan Jindal, a cousin of Jindal, said.

"He has made us all happy and proud."

Another relative said it was a big day for the entire family.

As the news of Jindal's victory reached the town in Sangrur district, people started greeting one other and broke into impromptu bhangra dances as the Jindal family distributed sweets.

US Republican Jindal, 36, became the first-ever person of Indian descent to become governor of any of the US states.

Jindal, the son of Indian immigrant parents, won 444,550 votes or 53 percent of the votes. He will become the country's youngest governor in office when he takes over in January.

Republican Bobby Jindal Sunday created history when he became not only the first person of Indian origin to become governor of a US state but also the nation's youngest chief executive as he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents in southern Louisiana.

Jindal, 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov 17 runoff.

'My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream. And guess what happened. They found the American Dream to be alive and well right here in Louisiana,' he said to cheers and applause at his victory party.

His nearest competitor was Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent while Independent John Georges had 167,477 votes or 14 percent and Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 votes or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.

'I'm asking all of our supporters to get behind our new governor,' Georges said in a concession speech.

Jindal's election brought jubilation among the Indian Americans in the US who looked at it as emergence of a new era for the community in terms of political empowerment as he belongs to President George W. Bush's Republican party.

Jindal would be the first non-White governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction once he takes oath of office in January 2008.

He won the race in his second attempt, after losing out narrowly to the outgoing governor, Kathleen Blanco, in a closely contested election four years ago.

'Let's give our homeland, the great state of Louisiana, a fresh start. Louisiana is soon going to be on the rise,' Jindal told his supporters.

Elected for the second consecutive term to the US House of Representatives last year, Jindal is only the second Indian American Congressman after Dilip Singh Saund (1957 to 1963).

'This is something we all should take pride in and we should celebrate his success because this leads to many opportunities for others who are coming down the road, specially the youngsters,' said Upendra Chivukula, a South Asian Congressman.

Jindal's election becomes more significant, considering that Louisiana does not have a large Indian American population unlike some of the major states like New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and Texas.

Terming it as a historic occasion, Jay Chaudhari, president of the Indian American Leadership Initiative, said, 'Tonight, Bobby Jindal replaces the Mardi Gras Indians as the best known Indian from Louisiana. We congratulate him for providing Indian Americans a seat of the table.

'The test over the next four years is whether he is the right person for the seat,' he said hoping that as governor 'Jindal proceeds with caution on social policies such as mandatory prayer in schools which will be troubling to many Indian Americans.'

Son of Amar and Raj Jindal, Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teenager.

Born on June 10, 1971 in Baton Rouge, Jindal was Indian American Person of the year in 2005. At age 24, he was appointed the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, in which capacity he fixed the health care system of the state.

In 2001, Bush appointed him assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation. He held this post till 2003.

A year after losing the governor's race to Blanco four years ago, Oxford-educated Jindal won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans, but he was widely believed to have his eye on the governor's mansion.

Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state's slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

'My administration has begun readying for this change and we look forward to helping with a smooth transition,' she said in a prepared statement. 'I want to thank the people of Louisiana for the past four years, though there is still much work to do in my last few months as your governor.'

Jindal pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those 'feeding at the public trough,' revisiting a campaign theme.

'They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go,' he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform.

Jindal has held a strong lead in the polls since the field of candidates became settled nearly two months ago.

But the two multimillionaires in the race - Boasso, a state senator from St. Bernard Parish, and Georges, a New Orleans-area businessman - poured millions of their own dollars into their campaigns to try to prevent Jindal's victory.

Campbell, a public service commissioner from Bossier Parish, had less money but ran on a singular plan: scrapping the state income tax on businesses and individuals and levying a new tax on oil and gas processed in Louisiana.

The race was among the highest spending ones in Louisiana history. Jindal alone raised $11 million, and Georges poured about $10 million of his personal wealth into his campaign war chest while Boasso plugged in nearly $5 million of his own cash.
itself further into the Republican camp while joining a small group of states with minority or women chief executives.

Jindal, a 36-year-old Indian-American Republican congressman with sterling academic and policy credentials, won the state's unique all-party primary on Saturday, avoiding a runoff in November.

And while Louisiana has periodically elected Republican governors since the late 1970s, when Jindal takes office in January it will mark the first time since Reconstruction that a majority of the state's top three statewide officials belong to the GOP.

Sen. Mary Landrieu is a Democrat; she is up for re-election in 2008 and is considered one of Republicans' few pick-up opportunities next year. Her Senate colleague, David Vitter, is Republican.

Vitter in 2004 similarly claimed his Senate seat by winning an outright majority in the primary, making him the first Republican to represent Louisiana in the Senate since the 1870s.

Jindal's victory heralds the GOP's further ascendancy in Louisiana, particularly in the face of sweeping demographic changes after Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Massive flooding in both areas sent many black Louisianans, who often vote Democratic, fleeing from the state to Texas, Utah and elsewhere. While the full political impact of the population shifts from the 2005 storms are stilling being revealed, it's clear that Republicans are stronger than before.

State Democrats, meanwhile, have been beleaguered by scandals and poor election results. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco chose not to seek re-election after a seemingly sluggish response to flooding from the hurricanes and months of unflattering media coverage.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin won re-election in 2006 despite a nationally-panned performance in the face of the storm. And Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, under indictment on bribery charges, is oft-noted for an FBI investigation's discovery of $90,000 in his home freezer.

Republican, too, were embarrassed earlier this year when Sen. Vitter revealed that his name had been found in the address book of the "DC Madame." But after a flurry of negative stories and late-night comic jokes, fallout from the episode proved fleeting, without doing substantial damage to Vitter's approval ratings, nor apparently, the state party's.

Jindal's rise to the top of Louisiana government has been nothing short of meteoric. The son of Indian immigrants, the Baton Rouge native earned top grades at Brown University and was selected as a Rhodes Scholar.

After a short stint in management consulting with McKinsey & Company, then-Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster (R) tapped Jindal, age 24, to overhaul the state's Health and Hospitals Department.

Jindal later headed Louisiana's 80,000-student university system, cementing his reputation as a wonky policy wunderkind. When President George W. Bush took office in 2001 Jindal moved to Washington for a top post in the Health and Human Services Department.

At the urging of outgoing Gov. Foster, Jindal returned home in 2003 to seek the Louisiana governorship. Though he finished first in the primary, he did not capture the necessary majority. In the runoff he came up short against Blanco, then lieutenant governor.

In 2004 Jindal won the House seat Vitter vacated to move up to the Senate. In doing so he became the first Indian-American elected to Congress since Democrat Dalip Saund won in California's Central Valley-based 29th District in 1956. 1958 and 1960.

As the nation's soon-to-be first Indian-American governor, Jindal will bring a shade more diversity to the ranks of the nation's chief executives. In 2006 Democrat Deval Patrick won the top state job in Massachusetts, making him only the second African-American governor in the nation's history.

There are currently nine female governors (to be reduced by one, when Jindal replaces Gov. Blanco in Louisiana.)

The 2007 governor's race also represents a sea change in Louisiana's racial voting patterns. It was only 16 years ago that white supremacist leader David Duke scored 39 percent of the gubernatorial vote against scandal-plagued Democrat Edwin Edwards, who would later be sent to federal prison on corruption charges.

The partisan switch in the Louisiana governorship also further cements the GOP's majority in Southern statehouses. As in presidential and congressional elections, gubernatorial contests have been going Republicans' way since the 1960s.
Ahead of US President George W Bush's visit to India, an influential Congress delegation that includes Indian American Congressman Bobby Jindal is here to get a taste of the economic transformation taking place in India and its rising global status.

Bobby Jindal, Republican Congressman from Louisiana, is in India to create a positive buzz about the India-US civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement and the resolve of the Bush administration to push the deal through Congress, diplomatic sources said.

The 34-year-old Jindal, whose parents migrated from Punjab and who narrowly lost the 2003 gubernatorial race in Louisiana, is part of a bipartisan 10-member delegation to guide other Congressmen who are relatively new to India.

The Congressional delegation met Indian MPs under the aegis of the India-US Parliamentary Forum Friday morning. They are expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discuss an array of bilateral matters. Important Congressmen who are part of the delegation include Republican Paul Gilmore, who heads the delegation, and Democrat Jerry Costello.

The delegation was to be headed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, but he couldn't make it at the last minute.
Chandigarh, Oct 21 (IANS) With Bobby Jindal's election as governor of the US state of Louisiana, it was celebration time in his ancestral village Maler Kotla in Punjab as his relatives and others danced to the tunes of bhangra and distributed sweets.

"We are really proud that Bobby has won the governor's race," an excited Gulshan Jindal, a cousin of Jindal, said.

"He has made us all happy and proud."

Another relative said it was a big day for the entire family.

As the news of Jindal's victory reached the town in Sangrur district, people started greeting one other and broke into impromptu bhangra dances as the Jindal family distributed sweets.

US Republican Jindal, 36, became the first-ever person of Indian descent to become governor of any of the US states.

Jindal, the son of Indian immigrant parents, won 444,550 votes or 53 percent of the votes. He will become the country's youngest governor in office when he takes over in January.

Republican Bobby Jindal Sunday created history when he became not only the first person of Indian origin to become governor of a US state but also the nation's youngest chief executive as he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents in southern Louisiana.

Jindal, 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov 17 runoff.

'My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream. And guess what happened. They found the American Dream to be alive and well right here in Louisiana,' he said to cheers and applause at his victory party.

His nearest competitor was Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent while Independent John Georges had 167,477 votes or 14 percent and Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 votes or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.

'I'm asking all of our supporters to get behind our new governor,' Georges said in a concession speech.

Jindal's election brought jubilation among the Indian Americans in the US who looked at it as emergence of a new era for the community in terms of political empowerment as he belongs to President George W. Bush's Republican party.

Jindal would be the first non-White governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction once he takes oath of office in January 2008.

He won the race in his second attempt, after losing out narrowly to the outgoing governor, Kathleen Blanco, in a closely contested election four years ago.

'Let's give our homeland, the great state of Louisiana, a fresh start. Louisiana is soon going to be on the rise,' Jindal told his supporters.

Elected for the second consecutive term to the US House of Representatives last year, Jindal is only the second Indian American Congressman after Dilip Singh Saund (1957 to 1963).

'This is something we all should take pride in and we should celebrate his success because this leads to many opportunities for others who are coming down the road, specially the youngsters,' said Upendra Chivukula, a South Asian Congressman.

Jindal's election becomes more significant, considering that Louisiana does not have a large Indian American population unlike some of the major states like New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and Texas.

Terming it as a historic occasion, Jay Chaudhari, president of the Indian American Leadership Initiative, said, 'Tonight, Bobby Jindal replaces the Mardi Gras Indians as the best known Indian from Louisiana. We congratulate him for providing Indian Americans a seat of the table.

'The test over the next four years is whether he is the right person for the seat,' he said hoping that as governor 'Jindal proceeds with caution on social policies such as mandatory prayer in schools which will be troubling to many Indian Americans.'

Son of Amar and Raj Jindal, Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teenager.

Born on June 10, 1971 in Baton Rouge, Jindal was Indian American Person of the year in 2005. At age 24, he was appointed the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, in which capacity he fixed the health care system of the state.

In 2001, Bush appointed him assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation. He held this post till 2003.

A year after losing the governor's race to Blanco four years ago, Oxford-educated Jindal won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans, but he was widely believed to have his eye on the governor's mansion.

Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state's slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

'My administration has begun readying for this change and we look forward to helping with a smooth transition,' she said in a prepared statement. 'I want to thank the people of Louisiana for the past four years, though there is still much work to do in my last few months as your governor.'

Jindal pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those 'feeding at the public trough,' revisiting a campaign theme.

'They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go,' he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform.

Jindal has held a strong lead in the polls since the field of candidates became settled nearly two months ago.

But the two multimillionaires in the race - Boasso, a state senator from St. Bernard Parish, and Georges, a New Orleans-area businessman - poured millions of their own dollars into their campaigns to try to prevent Jindal's victory.

Campbell, a public service commissioner from Bossier Parish, had less money but ran on a singular plan: scrapping the state income tax on businesses and individuals and levying a new tax on oil and gas processed in Louisiana.

The race was among the highest spending ones in Louisiana history. Jindal alone raised $11 million, and Georges poured about $10 million of his personal wealth into his campaign war chest while Boasso plugged in nearly $5 million of his own cash.
itself further into the Republican camp while joining a small group of states with minority or women chief executives.

Jindal, a 36-year-old Indian-American Republican congressman with sterling academic and policy credentials, won the state's unique all-party primary on Saturday, avoiding a runoff in November.

And while Louisiana has periodically elected Republican governors since the late 1970s, when Jindal takes office in January it will mark the first time since Reconstruction that a majority of the state's top three statewide officials belong to the GOP.

Sen. Mary Landrieu is a Democrat; she is up for re-election in 2008 and is considered one of Republicans' few pick-up opportunities next year. Her Senate colleague, David Vitter, is Republican.

Vitter in 2004 similarly claimed his Senate seat by winning an outright majority in the primary, making him the first Republican to represent Louisiana in the Senate since the 1870s.

Jindal's victory heralds the GOP's further ascendancy in Louisiana, particularly in the face of sweeping demographic changes after Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Massive flooding in both areas sent many black Louisianans, who often vote Democratic, fleeing from the state to Texas, Utah and elsewhere. While the full political impact of the population shifts from the 2005 storms are stilling being revealed, it's clear that Republicans are stronger than before.

State Democrats, meanwhile, have been beleaguered by scandals and poor election results. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco chose not to seek re-election after a seemingly sluggish response to flooding from the hurricanes and months of unflattering media coverage.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin won re-election in 2006 despite a nationally-panned performance in the face of the storm. And Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, under indictment on bribery charges, is oft-noted for an FBI investigation's discovery of $90,000 in his home freezer.

Republican, too, were embarrassed earlier this year when Sen. Vitter revealed that his name had been found in the address book of the "DC Madame." But after a flurry of negative stories and late-night comic jokes, fallout from the episode proved fleeting, without doing substantial damage to Vitter's approval ratings, nor apparently, the state party's.

Jindal's rise to the top of Louisiana government has been nothing short of meteoric. The son of Indian immigrants, the Baton Rouge native earned top grades at Brown University and was selected as a Rhodes Scholar.

After a short stint in management consulting with McKinsey & Company, then-Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster (R) tapped Jindal, age 24, to overhaul the state's Health and Hospitals Department.

Jindal later headed Louisiana's 80,000-student university system, cementing his reputation as a wonky policy wunderkind. When President George W. Bush took office in 2001 Jindal moved to Washington for a top post in the Health and Human Services Department.

At the urging of outgoing Gov. Foster, Jindal returned home in 2003 to seek the Louisiana governorship. Though he finished first in the primary, he did not capture the necessary majority. In the runoff he came up short against Blanco, then lieutenant governor.

In 2004 Jindal won the House seat Vitter vacated to move up to the Senate. In doing so he became the first Indian-American elected to Congress since Democrat Dalip Saund won in California's Central Valley-based 29th District in 1956. 1958 and 1960.

As the nation's soon-to-be first Indian-American governor, Jindal will bring a shade more diversity to the ranks of the nation's chief executives. In 2006 Democrat Deval Patrick won the top state job in Massachusetts, making him only the second African-American governor in the nation's history.

There are currently nine female governors (to be reduced by one, when Jindal replaces Gov. Blanco in Louisiana.)

The 2007 governor's race also represents a sea change in Louisiana's racial voting patterns. It was only 16 years ago that white supremacist leader David Duke scored 39 percent of the gubernatorial vote against scandal-plagued Democrat Edwin Edwards, who would later be sent to federal prison on corruption charges.

The partisan switch in the Louisiana governorship also further cements the GOP's majority in Southern statehouses. As in presidential and congressional elections, gubernatorial contests have been going Republicans' way since the 1960s.

By 1998-1999, however, Democrats won back a number of Southern governorships, including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, giving them rough parity in the region.

But GOP gubernatorial candidates have consistently won since then. After Jindal takes office, the only southern states will Democrats will hold the governorships will be Tennessee, North Carolina Arkansas and Virginia. Kentucky's governorship, however, is also contested this year, and Democrat Steve Beshear if favored to beat Republican incumbent Ernie Fletcher in November.
Ahead of US President George W Bush's visit to India, an influential Congress delegation that includes Indian American Congressman Bobby Jindal is here to get a taste of the economic transformation taking place in India and its rising global status.

Bobby Jindal, Republican Congressman from Louisiana, is in India to create a positive buzz about the India-US civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement and the resolve of the Bush administration to push the deal through Congress, diplomatic sources said.

The 34-year-old Jindal, whose parents migrated from Punjab and who narrowly lost the 2003 gubernatorial race in Louisiana, is part of a bipartisan 10-member delegation to guide other Congressmen who are relatively new to India.

The Congressional delegation met Indian MPs under the aegis of the India-US Parliamentary Forum Friday morning. They are expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discuss an array of bilateral matters. Important Congressmen who are part of the delegation include Republican Paul Gilmore, who heads the delegation, and Democrat Jerry Costello.

The delegation was to be headed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, but he couldn't make it at the last minute.
Chandigarh, Oct 21 (IANS) With Bobby Jindal's election as governor of the US state of Louisiana, it was celebration time in his ancestral village Maler Kotla in Punjab as his relatives and others danced to the tunes of bhangra and distributed sweets.

"We are really proud that Bobby has won the governor's race," an excited Gulshan Jindal, a cousin of Jindal, said.

"He has made us all happy and proud."

Another relative said it was a big day for the entire family.

As the news of Jindal's victory reached the town in Sangrur district, people started greeting one other and broke into impromptu bhangra dances as the Jindal family distributed sweets.

US Republican Jindal, 36, became the first-ever person of Indian descent to become governor of any of the US states.

Jindal, the son of Indian immigrant parents, won 444,550 votes or 53 percent of the votes. He will become the country's youngest governor in office when he takes over in January.

Republican Bobby Jindal Sunday created history when he became not only the first person of Indian origin to become governor of a US state but also the nation's youngest chief executive as he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents in southern Louisiana.

Jindal, 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov 17 runoff.

'My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream. And guess what happened. They found the American Dream to be alive and well right here in Louisiana,' he said to cheers and applause at his victory party.

His nearest competitor was Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent while Independent John Georges had 167,477 votes or 14 percent and Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 votes or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.

'I'm asking all of our supporters to get behind our new governor,' Georges said in a concession speech.

Jindal's election brought jubilation among the Indian Americans in the US who looked at it as emergence of a new era for the community in terms of political empowerment as he belongs to President George W. Bush's Republican party.

Jindal would be the first non-White governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction once he takes oath of office in January 2008.

He won the race in his second attempt, after losing out narrowly to the outgoing governor, Kathleen Blanco, in a closely contested election four years ago.

'Let's give our homeland, the great state of Louisiana, a fresh start. Louisiana is soon going to be on the rise,' Jindal told his supporters.

Elected for the second consecutive term to the US House of Representatives last year, Jindal is only the second Indian American Congressman after Dilip Singh Saund (1957 to 1963).

'This is something we all should take pride in and we should celebrate his success because this leads to many opportunities for others who are coming down the road, specially the youngsters,' said Upendra Chivukula, a South Asian Congressman.

Jindal's election becomes more significant, considering that Louisiana does not have a large Indian American population unlike some of the major states like New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and Texas.

Terming it as a historic occasion, Jay Chaudhari, president of the Indian American Leadership Initiative, said, 'Tonight, Bobby Jindal replaces the Mardi Gras Indians as the best known Indian from Louisiana. We congratulate him for providing Indian Americans a seat of the table.

'The test over the next four years is whether he is the right person for the seat,' he said hoping that as governor 'Jindal proceeds with caution on social policies such as mandatory prayer in schools which will be troubling to many Indian Americans.'

Son of Amar and Raj Jindal, Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teenager.

Born on June 10, 1971 in Baton Rouge, Jindal was Indian American Person of the year in 2005. At age 24, he was appointed the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, in which capacity he fixed the health care system of the state.

In 2001, Bush appointed him assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation. He held this post till 2003.

A year after losing the governor's race to Blanco four years ago, Oxford-educated Jindal won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans, but he was widely believed to have his eye on the governor's mansion.

Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state's slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

'My administration has begun readying for this change and we look forward to helping with a smooth transition,' she said in a prepared statement. 'I want to thank the people of Louisiana for the past four years, though there is still much work to do in my last few months as your governor.'

Jindal pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those 'feeding at the public trough,' revisiting a campaign theme.

'They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go,' he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform.

Jindal has held a strong lead in the polls since the field of candidates became settled nearly two months ago.

But the two multimillionaires in the race - Boasso, a state senator from St. Bernard Parish, and Georges, a New Orleans-area businessman - poured millions of their own dollars into their campaigns to try to prevent Jindal's victory.

Campbell, a public service commissioner from Bossier Parish, had less money but ran on a singular plan: scrapping the state income tax on businesses and individuals and levying a new tax on oil and gas processed in Louisiana.

The race was among the highest spending ones in Louisiana history. Jindal alone raised $11 million, and Georges poured about $10 million of his personal wealth into his campaign war chest while Boasso plugged in nearly $5 million of his own cash.
itself further into the Republican camp while joining a small group of states with minority or women chief executives.

Jindal, a 36-year-old Indian-American Republican congressman with sterling academic and policy credentials, won the state's unique all-party primary on Saturday, avoiding a runoff in November.

And while Louisiana has periodically elected Republican governors since the late 1970s, when Jindal takes office in January it will mark the first time since Reconstruction that a majority of the state's top three statewide officials belong to the GOP.

Sen. Mary Landrieu is a Democrat; she is up for re-election in 2008 and is considered one of Republicans' few pick-up opportunities next year. Her Senate colleague, David Vitter, is Republican.

Vitter in 2004 similarly claimed his Senate seat by winning an outright majority in the primary, making him the first Republican to represent Louisiana in the Senate since the 1870s.

Jindal's victory heralds the GOP's further ascendancy in Louisiana, particularly in the face of sweeping demographic changes after Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Massive flooding in both areas sent many black Louisianans, who often vote Democratic, fleeing from the state to Texas, Utah and elsewhere. While the full political impact of the population shifts from the 2005 storms are stilling being revealed, it's clear that Republicans are stronger than before.

State Democrats, meanwhile, have been beleaguered by scandals and poor election results. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco chose not to seek re-election after a seemingly sluggish response to flooding from the hurricanes and months of unflattering media coverage.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin won re-election in 2006 despite a nationally-panned performance in the face of the storm. And Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, under indictment on bribery charges, is oft-noted for an FBI investigation's discovery of $90,000 in his home freezer.

Republican, too, were embarrassed earlier this year when Sen. Vitter revealed that his name had been found in the address book of the "DC Madame." But after a flurry of negative stories and late-night comic jokes, fallout from the episode proved fleeting, without doing substantial damage to Vitter's approval ratings, nor apparently, the state party's.

Jindal's rise to the top of Louisiana government has been nothing short of meteoric. The son of Indian immigrants, the Baton Rouge native earned top grades at Brown University and was selected as a Rhodes Scholar.

After a short stint in management consulting with McKinsey & Company, then-Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster (R) tapped Jindal, age 24, to overhaul the state's Health and Hospitals Department.

Jindal later headed Louisiana's 80,000-student university system, cementing his reputation as a wonky policy wunderkind. When President George W. Bush took office in 2001 Jindal moved to Washington for a top post in the Health and Human Services Department.

At the urging of outgoing Gov. Foster, Jindal returned home in 2003 to seek the Louisiana governorship. Though he finished first in the primary, he did not capture the necessary majority. In the runoff he came up short against Blanco, then lieutenant governor.

In 2004 Jindal won the House seat Vitter vacated to move up to the Senate. In doing so he became the first Indian-American elected to Congress since Democrat Dalip Saund won in California's Central Valley-based 29th District in 1956. 1958 and 1960.

As the nation's soon-to-be first Indian-American governor, Jindal will bring a shade more diversity to the ranks of the nation's chief executives. In 2006 Democrat Deval Patrick won the top state job in Massachusetts, making him only the second African-American governor in the nation's history.

There are currently nine female governors (to be reduced by one, when Jindal replaces Gov. Blanco in Louisiana.)

The 2007 governor's race also represents a sea change in Louisiana's racial voting patterns. It was only 16 years ago that white supremacist leader David Duke scored 39 percent of the gubernatorial vote against scandal-plagued Democrat Edwin Edwards, who would later be sent to federal prison on corruption charges.

The partisan switch in the Louisiana governorship also further cements the GOP's majority in Southern statehouses. As in presidential and congressional elections, gubernatorial contests have been going Republicans' way since the 1960s.

By 1998-1999, however, Democrats won back a number of Southern governorships, including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, giving them rough parity in the region.

But GOP gubernatorial candidates have consistently won since then. After Jindal takes office, the only southern states will Democrats will hold the governorships will be Tennessee, North Carolina Arkansas and Virginia. Kentucky's governorship, however, is also contested this year, and Democrat Steve Beshear if favored to beat Republican incumbent Ernie Fletcher in November.

By 1998-1999, however, Democrats won back a number of Southern governorships, including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, giving them rough parity in the region.

But GOP gubernatorial candidates have consistently won since then. After Jindal takes office, the only southern states will Democrats will hold the governorships will be Tennessee, North Carolina Arkansas and Virginia. Kentucky's governorship, however, is also contested this year, and Democrat Steve Beshear if favored to beat Republican incumbent Ernie Fletcher in November.