| Current Poll |
Should members of the LSU Board of Supervisors disclose who receives their scholarships?
View Results
|
|
Story Archives: Jindal's latest endorsement
- 2013 - 802 articles
- 2012 - 1954 articles
- 2011 - 2029 articles
- 2010 - 2139 articles
- 2009 - 2066 articles
- December 2009 - 163 articles
- November 2009 - 166 articles
- October 2009 - 231 articles
- September 2009 - 161 articles
- September 26th, 2009 (Saturday) - 2 articles
- September 25th, 2009 (Friday) - 2 articles
- September 24th, 2009 (Thursday) - 27 articles
- September 23rd, 2009 (Wednesday) - 9 articles
- September 19th, 2009 (Saturday) - 2 articles
- September 18th, 2009 (Friday) - 1 articles
- September 17th, 2009 (Thursday) - 19 articles
- September 16th, 2009 (Wednesday) - 12 articles
- September 15th, 2009 (Tuesday) - 1 articles
- September 10th, 2009 (Thursday) - 31 articles
- September 9th, 2009 (Wednesday) - 11 articles
- September 6th, 2009 (Sunday) - 3 articles
- September 3rd, 2009 (Thursday) - 30 articles
- September 2nd, 2009 (Wednesday) - 10 articles
- September 1st, 2009 (Tuesday) - 1 articles
- August 2009 - 136 articles
- July 2009 - 153 articles
- June 2009 - 126 articles
- May 2009 - 164 articles
- April 2009 - 242 articles
- March 2009 - 204 articles
- February 2009 - 163 articles
- January 2009 - 157 articles
- 2008 - 1757 articles
|
Jindal's latest endorsement
 On more than one occasion recently I've been exposed to some grumbling over Gov. Bobby Jindal's appearance in a television commercial endorsing Jimmy Faircloth's campaign for Supreme Court.
The grumbling surfaced among supporters of Faircloth's opponent in the Oct. 17 special election, Judge Marcus Clark, a 4th Judicial District Court jurist.
If you recall, Faircloth and Clark are in the midst of a campaign to fill Justice Chet Traylor's unexpired term on the state's highest court. Traylor resigned in late May to pursue a legal career in private practice. He represented District 4 of the Supreme Court since first being elected in 1996.
Clark is a Republican; Faircloth is a Republican, too. So is Jindal.
A former law enforcement officer and a former assistant district attorney, Clark was first elected to the 4th Judicial District Court bench in 1996. Faircloth practiced law at his own firm before becoming Jindal's executive counsel in early 2008. Faircloth recently resigned as Jindal's primary attorney to run for the Supreme Court seat.
It's obvious Faircloth and Jindal have a special relationship. Otherwise, why would Jindal stick his neck on the line for Faircloth?
In lieu of delving into the whys or what's really behind Jindal's endorsement of his former executive counsel, let's recall a number of occasions in which a governor involved himself in an election other than his own.
In 1996, then-Gov. Mike Foster endorsed then-state Rep. Woody Jenkins in his campaign against Mary Landrieu for an open U.S. Senate seat. Landrieu won by some 5,000 votes statewide amid allegations of voter fraud in New Orleans.
In 2002, Foster endorsed then-Congressman John Cooksey in his bid to unseat Landrieu. Cooksey ran third in the race with 14 percent of the vote behind the incumbent and Suzanne Haik Terrell, who eventually lost to Landrieu in a run-off.
In 2003, as Foster was about to complete his second term as governor, he endorsed Bill Jones in his campaign for a second term representing District 35 in the state Senate. Jones' opponent was Judge Robert Kostelka. Kostelka waxed him on election day.
Earlier this year, Jindal got hip deep in a special election to fill the Senate seat Dr. Bill Cassidy gave up when he was elected to represent the 6th District of Louisiana in the U.S. House of Representatives. The candidate Jindal endorsed in the special election was Lee Domingue, who lost badly to Dan Claitor. Claitor pulled 66 percent of the vote in the District 16 race.
A couple of weeks ago, Jindal's candidate in a special election to fill a Senate seat down on the bayou in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes polled some 45 percent of the vote in a run-off election. That man was Brent Callais. The late Leonard Chabert's son, Norby, was elected.
The point in bringing up campaigns in which Foster and Jindal endorsed candidates who eventually lost was not meant to demean the former governor and the current governor. Instead, it's worth remembering those campaigns to remind ourselves that even a popular governor – Foster back then and Jindal today – does not automatically translate into the "chosen" candidate emerging victorious on election day. Instead, the opposite has occurred in the past 13 years.
Politics being politics, though, anything is possible when a governor puts his reputation on the line. That's exactly what Jindal did in agreeing to appear in Faircloth's campaign commercial.
At the end of the day, any man or woman, including a governor, has every right to declare his or her support for a particular candidate.
That's true, too, if you don't agree with it.
|
|
|
E-mail Story
Print Story
