JINDAL WINS! (GARNERS 54% OF THE VOTE)
by Jan Moller - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

BATON ROUGE -- In a campaign that had the air of both the inevitable and the historical, Bobby Jindal was elected governor Saturday, claiming the electoral prize that eluded him four years ago.

By winning more than 50 percent of the primary vote against a field of 12 candidates, Jindal became the first candidate to win an open gubernatorial seat since Louisiana adopted its nonpartisan primary system in 1975. Buddy Roemer was elected governor in 1987 when incumbent Edwin Edwards dropped out after trailing in the primary. Jindal also is the first member of an ethnic minority to become the state's chief executive since Reconstruction.

The 36-year-old Jindal becomes the nation's youngest governor and the first chief executive of any state who is of Indian-American descent. When he officially takes over from Gov. Kathleen Blanco in January he will be the second-youngest person to serve in that office after Huey P. Long, who was 35 when voters first elected him in 1928.

Despite beautiful weather throughout most of the state, turnout for the election that featured statewide, legislative and local races was only 46 percent. And while 1.4 million voted in the 2003 governor's race, the number was down to 1.3 million Saturday in the new post-Katrina landscape. That included a drop from 121,841 in New Orleans four years ago to 75,880 in this election.

Stressing the themes that he has emphasized throughout the campaign, Jindal promised to call the Legislature into special session shortly after he is inaugurated to pass stronger ethics laws: an issue he termed the "linchpin for change."

Should anyone try to derail those efforts, Jindal said, "I will call them out."