Opinion: A Louisiana politician, new Gov. Bobby Jindal, turns down free gift!

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It’s political dodgeball time in the Republican Party.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal dodged a question today on whether he’d ‘promise’ not to join Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain as his vice presidential running mate this fall.

‘He’s not going to ask me to run,’ Jindal said, answering a question he’d rather have instead of the one actually asked. ‘I think it would be presumptuous to turn down something I’ve not been offered. I likened it earlier this week to -- like going to high school and telling the prettiest girl in the high school ‘I’m not going to the prom with you’ before she asks me.

‘I like the job I’ve got,’ said Jindal, who took office only four months ago. He added that when McCain visited Louisiana last week, the two spoke about the state’s recovery plans, levees, wetlands and attempts to cut through government bureaucracy to speed the recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. ‘I’ve got a job where I get to make a difference for my state.’

As Louisiana recovers from the economic aftershocks of the 2005 storm, Jindal said he has been attempting to attract business to the state.

‘We’re not a poor state... we’re a wealthy state,’ Jindal said, adding that Louisiana boasts oil, fisheries, ports and six major rail lines. ‘We should be running circles around every other state in....

...the country. And yet even before the storms... we were one of the only states in the South to be losing our people.’

Recently, the Louisiana legislature approved dozens of ethics bills that the new GOP governor thinks will convince potential investors the stereotyped ‘Louisiana way’ of doing business -- with widespread influence peddling for government contracting -- is a thing of the past.

The legislation prohibits elected officials from doing business with the state, and it forces elected and appointed officials to disclose sources of income. It also requires lobbyists to disclose their lobbying income, what they are lobbying for and who they are lobbying.

He said that the changes in Louisiana led the Center for Public Integrity to rank the state first in ethics standards. In previous years, Louisiana has ranked 43rd or 44th. ‘We worked hard to restore the people’s trust in the system in Louisiana,’ Jindal said.

But he said that the second step to attract commerce was to curtail business taxes. ‘If you want businesses to borrow money, to expand, to modernize, to invest in your state, don’t tax them when they’re trying to do it,’ Jindal said.

Jindal, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, encouraged Congress to approve funding as soon as possible to rebuild levees in Louisiana, and he said there should be a national interest in restoring Louisiana’s wetlands.

Last year, Jindal became the nation’s youngest governor at 36. He’s the son of Indian immigrants who as a four-year-old asked his friends to call him Bobby after the Brady Bunch TV show character, graduated with honors from Brown University and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Before Jindal took over as governor, he twice was elected to the House, served as an assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and ran unsuccessfully for governor.

Some Republicans tout Jindal, who is Louisiana’s first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction, as the ideal addition to the McCain ticket. Conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh has described the slight Jindal as the next Ronald Reagan.

In accordance with the state’s ethics rules, Jindal said he could not accept a mug presented to him by the press club.

But he said that he would donate the mug to the state. ‘If you come to the governor’s mansion, you’ll see this sitting in the mansion long after I’m governor,’ Jindal said.

-- Whitney Blair Wyckoff

Wyckoff writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau. Photo Credit: AP