A'ight, Bobby!

Bayou Bobby

A new governor offers hope for disaffected Louisiana expats.

BY ROD DREHER Friday, October 26, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Alas for me, I didn't get to cast a vote for Bobby Jindal, the winner of last weekend's Louisiana governor's race. It's been 15 years since I left the Bayou.

The last time I voted in a gubernatorial contest there, it felt less like a civic duty than an occasion of sin. I pulled the lever for Democrat Edwin W. Edwards--instead of my fellow Republican, David Duke--following the instruction of the bumper sticker on my car: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important."

That evening, I went to a party in Baton Rouge, attached myself to a keg of Budweiser and talked long into the night about how, four years after electing the supposedly reform-minded governor Buddy Roemer, it had come to this. I was only two years out of LSU and, like just about everybody I knew then, wanted to move away. What future did any of us have in a state where the choice was either a blow-dried Ku Klucker or an oleaginous Cajun kleptocrat? (As the joke had it, the Wizard or the Lizard?)

I soon left for Washington, D.C., a new job and a new life. Many years later, in an online discussion about the fate of the state, I read that a well-known New Orleans journalist, having lost hope in his family's future there, stood in the middle of his newsroom to announce his resignation. He said that he loved the city dearly but couldn't raise his children in a town that cherished parades more than libraries. Framed that way, you can understand why so many Louisianians choose to expatriate, but never quite get over leaving.

Louisiana has been at or near the bottom of "quality of life" lists for so long that you start to believe that there's something genetically wrong with its residents. For 15 out of the past 17 years, Louisiana has been either America's Least Livable State or runner-up in the annual Morgan Quitno research firm's comprehensive rankings, which combine educational, economic, health, environmental and crime statistics. No wonder Louisiana has for at least two decades experienced a steady out-migration of young professionals.

You notice something, though, when Louisianians meet in exile. Everybody misses home and will take any opportunity to talk about it. Our friends--Yankees, mostly--get the biggest kick out of our honest-to-God tales of Bayou State life (political and otherwise). My wife, a native Texan, confessed that when we first started dating, she thought my stories about my homeland revealed me to be a pathological liar--until I took her there to see for herself. She visited my Uncle Murphy's grave and saw the headstone he'd won playing bourré (a Cajun card game) with an undertaker. He had it inscribed with the epitaph: "This ain't bad, once you get used to it."

Louisiana makes a lot more sense if you read the beloved picaresque "A Confederacy of Dunces" as an exercise in literary naturalism. There's simply no place like Louisiana. You will not find more generous and life-loving people anywhere, and Lord knows, you won't eat or drink better. It's hard to get over that. But you do, mostly. Last Sunday, I ran into a couple I know at a Krispy Kreme shop here in Dallas. We got to talking about the Jindal victory, and the wife, a non-native who had fallen in love with Louisiana as a Tulane student, said warmly that she'd love to move back. The husband gave her a look that telegraphed, "Yes, we all would, dear, but come on."

Despite all the sentimental longing for LSU Tigers tailgating and the scent of Zatarain's crawfish boil on your fingers, moving home rarely crosses the minds of us expatriates. Louisiana is a great place to be from, but the sense of fatalism that pervades life there casts doubt on whether it will some day be great place to be. In Louisiana, to be educated is to love the state and hate the state--and, for many, to leave it.

Here's the thing about Bobby Jindal: He didn't leave for good. He came home. With his Ivy League and Oxbridge education and his startling smarts, he could have gone anywhere and nobody back home would have blamed him. In fact, he is the epitome of the kind of Louisianian who emigrates to Dallas, Atlanta and points beyond--driving around with an LSU sticker on his bumper.

But he didn't. The guy actually seemed to think he could make a difference in Louisiana. He got involved in government at age 24 and stuck with it. He ran for governor in 2003 and lost to Democrat Kathleen Blanco. When the Katrina hurricane aftermath destroyed Ms. Blanco's career, Mr. Jindal's loss came to look like a blessing in disguise. Anyway, after what Katrina revealed about the chronic dysfunction of the state, how crazy would a politician have to be to think he could straighten out a place like that?

Well, now we know. This unlikeliest of all Deep South politicians, a squeaky-clean Gen-X son of Indian immigrants, a policy wonk and Catholic convert who, as a child, adopted a nickname from a "Brady Bunch" character, just got himself elected. In his victory speech, Mr. Jindal exhorted a jubilant crowd of supporters: "I'm asking you to once again believe in Louisiana." That's asking a lot.

As it happened, the night Mr. Jindal won I was having dinner in Henry County, Ky., with the farmer and agrarian poet Wendell Berry and a group of his conservative admirers. Earlier in the day, we'd heard Mr. Berry talk about how we Americans educate our children today for outgoing, not homecoming, and what a shame that is. We'd been talking about what kind of country we'd have if folks decided to stay home and learn to love their little place.

That night, my father woke me up phoning from St. Francisville, La.. "Jindal won tonight!" he said, tickled to death. So did the Tigers, but I don't think he even mentioned football.
I haven't lived in Louisiana in a long time, but this election makes me proud and hopeful--two emotions unfamiliar to exiled Bayou Staters. And the promise of Mr. Jindal's leadership makes me wonder, for the first time since I packed up the U-Haul and drove off, if maybe I--and now, my children--have a future in Louisiana.

Yes, I know, reform-minded governors (and their supporters) always come to grief in our wizardy, lizardy banana republic. Yes, I'm fully aware that Louisiana is bound to break your heart. And yes, I live happily in Texas. But you know what? My governor is a Hindu Catholic Republican, and I think he's going to write the next great Louisiana story. Maybe just this once, it's not going to be a farce.

Mr. Dreher is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News