Posted on 10/24/2003 5:32:49 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Jindal’s New Ad Condemns Blanco’s Negative Attacks
Press Release:
After two straight weeks of attacks by Kathleen Blanco, Gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal today released a new television ad urging voters to reject the negative politics of the past and focus on the issues facing Louisiana this election.
Jindal said, “I’m still hopeful that we can focus on the issues. There is still time for Kathleen to refocus her campaign.” Jindal went on to say, “Every candidate has the right to defend themselves against lies, distortions and half-truths, but we shouldn’t be distracted by the negative politics of the past.”
Blanco began attacking Jindal just days into the runoff, making a 180 degree turn from her position in the primary. During the primary Kathleen Blanco decried the negative attacks leveled at her by Richard Ieyoub.
Blanco’s Record of Continuous Attacks:
Ø Blanco attacks and distorts Jindal’s record at an endorsement press conference with Ieyoub. (The Advocate, 10/15/03)
Ø ‘Blanco takes a shot at Jindal on health care’ (Times-Picayune headline, 10/16/03)
Ø “After spending the weeks before the primary defending herself against attack ads, Democrat Kathleen Blanco launched one of her own for the gubernatorial runoff…”, (AP, 10/16/03)
Ø “Blanco, who said Jindal was "a very young man with very little life experience…" (Times Picayune, 10/16/03)
Ø “I have earned my way here. Nobody gave me anything," Blanco said, in a veiled slap at Gov. Mike Foster's fierce support of Jindal. (Associated Press, 10/20/03)
Ø “Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco leveled some of her sharpest attacks to date in the governor's race Monday.” (Times Picayune, 10/21/03)
Ø "This started back eight years ago. Today's problems are decisions made by immature people of the past." (Times Picayune, 10/21/03)
Ø “Blanco Launching Attacks” (BayouBuzz.com, 10/17/03)
Ø“Blanco’s campaign released a negative spot on African-American radio…” (BayouBuzz.com, 10/17/03)
Ø “Blanco is now playing the race card as so many candidates do.” (BayouBuzz.com, 10/17/03)
Ø “Kathleen Blanco extolled the virtues of running a positive campaign just as soon as it became clear that she would squeak into the gubernatorial runoff with Bobby Jindal. In her next breath, she began slinging mud at him.” (PoliticsLA.com, 10/20/03)
Blanco on Negative Attack Politics:
Ø “I understand that when an attack comes, it’s someone who’s coming from behind and it’s a desperate attack,” (The Advocate, 9/27/03)
Ø “In a written statement, Blanco said, ‘I am really sorry that Richard decided that he had to go negative with distortions and half-truths about me … I always thought he was a better person than that.’” (Times-Picayune, 9/25/03)
Ø “Blanco, Taddlie said, plans to keep to her script: Condemn the negative attacks and stay above the fray.” (Times-Picayune 10/1/03)
Ø “Only Democratic front-runner Lt. Governor Kathleen Blanco addressed another candidate, condemning a television spot aired this week by Attorney General Richard Ieyoub …” (Times-Picayune 10/2/02)
Ø “Blanco also said she is ‘sickened’ by what she said are lies Ieyoub is spreading …” (The Advocate, 10/2/03)
Incredibly, Blanco made this claim on October 18th
Ø "I haven't said the first bad thing about Bobby." (The Advocate, 10/18/03)
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Major black political group in New Orleans endorses Jindal
The Associated Press 10/23/2003, 2:52 p.m. CT
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A major black political group — one which has traditionally supported Democratic candidates — is backing Republican Bobby Jindal for governor, his campaign said Thursday.
Jindal, in a runoff against Democrat Kathleen Blanco, scheduled a news conference at Charity Hospital to announce the endorsement of the Black Organization for Leadership Development, better known as BOLD.
Its leaders include former Councilman Jim Singleton and state Rep. Karen Carter, an outspoken member of the Legislative Black Caucus.
"We've been talking to them for several weeks," said Trey Williams, a spokesman for Jindal. "He talked about the issues important to him — better schools, health care. Apparently those issues resonated."
The development took a veteran political analyst aback.
"Bobby Jindal?" asked Silas Lee, a note of incredulity in his voice. "Bobby Jindal. Wow."
It's a political coup and an endorsement likely to surprise everyone in the political establishment because BOLD has traditionally endorsed progressive Democrats, Lee said.
Although both Blanco and Jindal are conservative, Jindal is slightly more so, he said.
"There's some differences on some social issues," he said. "Definitely I would say Jindal is more conservative to some degree than Blanco."
It also means that Blanco will have to work even harder to get the black vote, a key part of her party's base, said Wayne Parent, a political science professor at Louisiana State University.
He said he was also surprised by the endorsement.
"But Jindal's a new kind of candidate, and maybe he's been able to accomplish something that other Republicans have had a lot less success doing," Parent said.
"He campaigned as very conservative and he is a Republican, and that's usually a difficult sell for African American groups in the South. Clearly, then, they were able to bridge that gap," Parent said.
He wouldn't even guess at how Jindal did that.
"I would have loved to have been in the room" when the decision was made, he said.
Lee said the race has been one surprise after another — nobody expected either Blanco or Jindal to make it to the runoff, let alone that BOLD or Harry Lee, the Democratic sheriff of Jefferson Parish, would endorse a conservative Republican.
"What else will happen in this runoff? Who knows?" he said.
----------------------------------------------------- Supriya Jindal termed 'humble,' 'methodical' John Hill Posted on October 23, 2003
BATON ROUGE - When Supriya Jolly Jindal was a Tulane University student majoring in chemistry, she underplayed her intelligence to her friends.
"She would turn in a chemical engineering project and say, 'I'm sure I failed,' and then she would get the highest grade in the class," said college friend Lisanne McDearman, a former CNN auditor who's now an Atlanta wedding planner. "We would laugh at her about it." McDearman says Supriya Jindal is "extremely intelligent, but so down-to-earth about it, so humble."
Now the 31-year-old wife of gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal underplays how she handles her chemical engineering job with Albemarle Corp., her 21-month-old daughter, pregnancy with a second child, helping in her husband's political campaign and working on a doctoral degree.
"I'm just like a lot of other working moms," she said. "You have to juggle a lot of things during the day to make it work. We're lucky we have the support of our families."
Unlike many other working moms, one of the things she juggles is speaking engagements on her husband's behalf. Her most recent appearance was a Tuesday address to the Acadiana Republican Women's Association in Lafayette and she's riding tonight in a Lake Charles "Contraband Days" parade.
Jindal doesn't consider herself a politician's wife because "Bobby's not a traditional politician. He's never run for office before and he never envisioned running for an elected office."
Asked whether she will continue working if her husband wins the Nov. 15 election, she said "we'll see how it goes one day at a time."
She laughs when asked what kind of influence she has over her husband's political decisions.
"We talk in the evenings," she said, "but we don't really get into issues. Our typical conversations are about Selia (their daughter) and our personal lives."
Occasionally, the two discuss strategy "but he makes his own decisions at the end of the day," she said.
On the campaign trail, "we do some things together," she said, but she sometimes travels without her husband. "He obviously does the bulk of the campaigning."
Trey Williams, the Jindal campaign's media consultant, says the campaign schedule is arranged so the candidate can come home as often as possible. He spends more nights at their Baton Rouge home than on the road.
Mike Hollis, a classmate of Supriya Jolly's at Grace King High School in Metairie, describes her as someone who "was never out in the public eye" but was "the backbone" of the student council and other organizations. She was a senator when he was president of the council.
"She's the kind of person that's very methodical and thinks through what she's going to do," he said.
Hollis said she spearheaded a 1988 project that rounded up kindergartners who would be seniors in 2000 at Grace King so they could plant trees and hide time capsules to be dug up when the new millennium began.
The Jindals met in high school - Baton Rouge Magnet High - but never dated. She says he asked for a date once and she turned him down because her family was moving to New Orleans.
After Bobby Jindal became the head of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, the pair met again by accident. His date canceled out on a New Orleans Mardi Gras ball, so he called Supriya Jolly, whom he hadn't seen since their freshman year in high school. They were married less than a year later.
"We have a very balanced relationship," she said. "He helps around the house, doing dishes and taking out the trash" and shares in taking care of their daughter, whose photographs dominate the walls of her mother's Albemarle Corp. office.
The Jindals, both former Hindus converted to Catholicism, named their daughter Selia Elizabeth after St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music.
"We're hoping she has musical talents," Supriya Jindal said, especially since the toddler shares the same Jan. 8 birthday with Elvis Presley.
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