Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Kingfishery and Kingcakery:The Recent Louisiana Governor's 'Race' - The indomitable and often abrasive James Gill has a post mortem on the Louisiana gubernatorial election in which he discusses the issue of race as a deciding factor in dark-skinned Indian-American Bobby Jindal's loss to white Cajun Kathleen Blanco. In short, he doesn't buy the race argument as an explanation of Jindal's loss. The clincher ending paragraphs say it all:

But if racism was a factor, it was hardly the only one. It was not uncommon during the campaign, for instance, to hear voters, with no qualms about Jindal's race, wondering whether he was ready for the big time. In the end, he did pretty well for a candidate making his first run for public office at the relatively tender age of 32.

And there is always the outlandish theory that 52 percent of the voters might actually have thought Blanco was better qualified to be governor.
Food for thought.

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