Earlier this week at the Lafayette Hilton, Every Child Matters in Louisiana held a gubernatorial forum on children's health care issues. The two-hour forum boasted a number of major sponsors, and KLFY's Darla Montgomery moderated the event. Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Georges, Democratic candidates Walter Boasso and Foster Campbell, Independent Tony Gentile and Libertarian Lee T. Horne were all present to offer their vision for health care in Louisiana.
The forum was an opportunity for Republican frontrunner and U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal to highlight his extensive health care knowledge. In 1996, Jindal was appointed secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Two years later, he was named executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. After serving in that capacity for two years, Jindal was appointed Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and became a senior health policy adviser to President George W. Bush.
Jindal, however, was conspicuously absent from the Every Child Matters forum, and his campaign waited until last week to inform organizers that Jindal would not be participating. His decision is particularly disappointing, considering the back story.
Every Child Matters in Louisiana first notified all the candidates of its intentions and the forum via a letter in mid-June, and followed up with phone calls to each campaign on July 2. Jindal's campaign is the only one that didn't respond, so forum organizers also hand-delivered and faxed letters to Jindal's Metairie congressional office, in addition to e-mailing Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere on July 19, who responded that he would forward the info to Jindal's campaign.
Instead of participating in the health care forum, Jindal spent Monday campaigning from Slidell to Hammond on his "Fresh Start" bus tour.
Conventional political wisdom holds that frontrunners have the most to lose by debating, as they risk opening themselves up to opponents' barbs and unexpected questions. But if there were ever an election that warranted throwing away the script, it's this one. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louisiana faces massive, unprecedented challenges. An insurance crisis. A crippled health care system. Long-overdue education reform. The need for comprehensive coastal protection and restoration. Housing shortages in the areas affected by Katrina and Rita. The list goes on and on.
Currently, Jindal has only committed to one major gubernatorial debate: a one-hour televised debate on Louisiana Public Broadcasting from 7-8 p.m. on Sept. 27. If that time is split equally between the four current major candidates ' Georges, Jindal, Boasso and Campbell ' then Louisiana voters will have a grand total of 15 unfiltered minutes to see and hear the four men who say they're the best choice to lead Louisiana for the next four years. (The Council for a Better Louisiana's Barry Erwin is hopeful that all the candidates will also commit to a second televised forum focusing primarily on health care issues, slated for Oct. 13.)
Louisiana voters deserve more. The race for governor so far has consisted largely of platform soundbites and predictable partisan sniping between the candidates and state party leaders. As the Oct. 20 election approaches, the inevitable onslaught of carefully scripted 30-second attack ads will only serve to further muddy the waters.
As the frontrunner, Jindal's in a prime position to set the tone for this election season. Voters are hungry for new leadership, new ideas and specific plans on how to move the state forward. Our next governor needs to be bold, unafraid of controversy and hard decisions and willing to take on all challenges put in his path. Imagine how refreshing it would be ' and what a message it would send ' if Jindal stepped up and said he was willing to debate his opponents as many times as necessary before Oct. 20. Instead, he looks like he's perfectly content to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed