Louisiana governor's race pits immigrant against Cajun

NEW ORLEANS -- The conservative Republican son of Indian immigrants and the Cajun woman who is his opponent in the race for Louisiana governor thanked voters Sunday for upending decades of Southern custom.

Bobby Jindal, a political neophyte, easily topped a field of veteran politicians Saturday, advancing to a Nov. 15 runoff for the state's highest office in a commanding position.

He and Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco broke the decades-old hold of white men on the governor's race in this and other Southern states. The 32-year-old Jindal, in particular, defied the predictions of pundits who said his ethnicity and his age would surely defeat him, despite a stellar resume.

He wound up with 33 percent of the vote; Blanco, his closest competitor, finished with 18 percent.

The predictions underestimated Louisiana voters, Jindal said Sunday.

"I'm proud they've spoken so loudly, saying, 'We want to move our state forward. We're willing to elect a problem-solver,"' he said.

Jindal gained that reputation, widely acknowledged even by opponents, when he solved a multimillion-dollar deficit in the state's Medicaid program. He was 24 at the time, and had been named Louisiana's health and hospitals chief.

The achievement later helped gain him a spot in the Health and Human Services Department under President Bush, who called his former assistant secretary Sunday to congratulate him.

Blanco appeared equally conscious of the historic upcoming race. Speaking from her home base in the Cajun city of Lafayette, she said: "It moves past all the traditional concepts of what Louisiana looks like."

Jindal led the field by appealing to conservative rural whites as well as urban moderates impressed by his resume, political experts said. But having gained almost no black votes, he faces a tough runoff and needs at least 65 percent of the white vote to win, according to Bernie Pinsonat of Southern Media and Opinion Research, a Baton Rouge polling firm.

"He's got to run a perfect race, and she's got to make mistakes," Pinsonat said.