Within the next week, if something or someone doesn’t start to change the dynamics of this governor’s race, it will be over after having barely started, with Bobby Jindal the state’s new leader.
It’s not an endorsement, nor even much of a prediction. None of the congressman’s three main opponents has yet to make a compelling case against him, so he’s barely had to make one for himself.
The Jindal campaign advised its supporters recently that a runoff is likely. That heartened his opponents, none of whom has been able to make such a claim with a straight face. Team Jindal wasn’t being entirely candid, but like the coach trying to get his team up for a patsy opponent, it is lowering expectations while pushing the troops to get it done now.
That’s one side, but the real story is what’s not happening on the other.
Not only have Democrats not coalesced around a single contender, but, according to some polls, Republican Jindal draws as much Democratic support as either of that party’s two main candidates. That lack of excitement for either Democrat foretells an anemic turnout among the party’s base in the African-American community. The ballot lacks other races, statewide or local, to boost voter participation. Indicative of the quiet campaign season is that the hottest election in Shreveport is for coroner.
A key frustration for opponents is their inability to engage Jindal in debate—his avoiding most forums doesn’t help—or to attack him and draw blood, besides their own.
Put Foster Campbell and Walter Boasso together and you have—other than one hearty appetite—a single viable Democratic candidate. The former has the message but not the money; the latter has ample resources but a mixed message.
Campbell has the boldest and most far-reaching proposal, to eliminate personal and corporate income taxes by levying a processing tax on oil and gas. He was unable to gin up much excitement for that plan when he was a state senator and little more, so far, as a candidate. It could just be that citizens, in picking a governor, vote for the messenger more than for the message.
The well-heeled Boasso wants to take on the insurance companies, take apart the LEAP advancement test for students and bring our troops home from Iraq. But the former Republican also sports a near-perfect legislative voting record with the state’s major business organization, making it harder for true Democrats to cuddle up to him.
Boasso has hit Jindal the hardest, calling him too friendly with insurance firms, too agreeable to President Bush and too hard-hearted when he was state health care secretary to look out for the little guy as governor.
Jindal has responded to, if not entirely answered, the criticism, by depicting Boasso as a clown in the corruption circus, while in another ad a country doctor defends his record.
Boasso’s aggressive strategy works better in a runoff, when voters often are reduced to choosing the lesser of evils. But in this primary, with other alternatives to Jindal, the attacker risks losing ground himself, which might have happened to Boasso.
Then there is John Georges, who considered becoming a Democrat before switching from Republican to independent on the day he qualified. Georges thinks that voters still aren’t sure about Jindal’s leadership qualities and that he can exploit those doubts.
In a short campaign, he is attempting to build favorable name recognition while also making distinctions between himself and the front-runner. He’s working on part one, introducing himself as a good dad and successful business owner. Part two—why him, not Jindal—is trickier and needs to start working right away.
Like the other two alternatives to Jindal, Georges is not looking for a knockout punch but only to separate himself from the pack and to peel enough soft support from the front-runner to force a runoff, which then becomes a whole new contest.
A simple enough game plan, but none of them has yet to stand out enough to make it work as we come up on the two-week warning.
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