Leadership and Crisis (11 page)

Alternatively, you can think of it this way: that kid in the failing school (the one who ends up dropping out) is a problem for all of us—including you. That kid is more likely to need public assistance, sell drugs to your kids, rob a store in your neighborhood, or end up in jail—all of which affects you in one way or another.

So, take your pick. Either care about kids in failing schools out of compassion or out of self-interest, but either way, you better start caring about them.

For me, this is an urgent issue that really boils down to a few simple questions:

Does America promise equal opportunity in education? Yes.

Does America provide equal opportunity in education? No.

Will I ever give up this fight? Never.

CHAPTER 5

FIRST-TIME CANDIDATE

If you ever get the urge to run for public office, take a deep breath and a few aspirin, and hopefully you’ll feel better in the morning. If that doesn’t work, see a doctor. If after that you still want to run, then go ahead and do it—but read this first.

I began thinking about running to be the next governor of Louisiana in 2002. I initially kept my thoughts to myself, only confiding in Supriya. That was safe because she was already used to my outlandish ideas, starting with the notion that she should go out with me. She was out of my league and hesitant to date me. But I wore her down—it only took ten years.

I first asked her out when I was in the tenth grade. She was the prettiest girl I had ever met. I liked her from afar for months, until my friends finally tired of hearing about her. They said if you like her so much—tell her, not us. I finally worked up the courage to call and ask her to the movies. She was the first girl I asked out and she turned me down flat, ostensibly because her family was moving in a few days to New Orleans (which, by the way, is only about an hour down the road). I was zero for one.

The next time I talked to her was ten years later, in 1996. I had travelled the globe by then, but I never got her out of my mind. I had recently been appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals for the state of Louisiana, and I was expected to attend a fancy Mardi Gras ball in Baton Rouge. Three days before the ball, my date backed out. She had to study for a med school exam (or so she said). Scrambling for a new date, I asked around and got Supriya’s phone number. I left a strange message on her answering machine: “Hi, this is Bobby Jindal. If you’re not married please call me back.”

The message was so odd that she actually returned the call. We had a great thirty-minute talk, as I told her about my new job and asked if she would bail me out and go with me to the ball. She was a good sport about it and agreed.

I asked her to meet me at my parents’ house, since I had not even found a place to live yet after moving from Washington, D.C. When my dad met her, that was it—he’d found the one for me, and he didn’t seem too concerned about my feelings on the matter. The ball was a lot of fun, and of course she was great company. Other than the drunk lady at our table who could not pronounce Supriya’s name—she finally settled for “Sabrina”—it was a wonderful night.

When I asked her for a second date, she invited me to come to New Orleans and go out to dinner with her and some of her girlfriends at Nola, one of Emeril Lagasse’s famous restaurants. But I got sick that day. I was out giving a speech that afternoon, and I knew I wasn’t going to make dinner. I couldn’t reach Supriya—not many people had cell phones back then—so I left a message with Nola’s maitre d’. Thus, I not only stood up Supriya, but her best friends as well. If you’re looking for dating tips, I’m not the guy to talk to.

I spent the next few months pleading over the phone for another date with Supriya. Most times I couldn’t reach her, so I would just talk to her mom. When I did reach Supriya, she was fun and pleasant, but she was always too busy for a date. Finally I asked her, “When are you
not
going to be busy?” A chemical engineer, she explained she had a big project at work and was working on her MBA in the evenings, so she wouldn’t have time for months—until July. So I said fine, mark down the first Friday and Saturday in July for our second and third dates. It had taken me almost five months to get a second date so I was determined to get a third one, too.

When the day finally came, I spared no expense. We took a river-boat cruise on the Natchez Steamboat in New Orleans, followed by dinner at Bella Luna along the Mississippi River and then a stroll down Bourbon Street. The next day we drove down River Road, and I pointed out plantation homes and Supriya pointed out chemical plants.

Even though I had been professionally successful, something big was missing from my life. I knew when I found Supriya again, it was her. It was a fast, whirlwind courtship. I knew I couldn’t risk losing her for another ten years. We got engaged that fall. We were in love—and still are. Even when I had to spend weeks on the road during the campaign, Supriya and I would talk frequently throughout the day even if only for a minute at a time. I didn’t just marry the prettiest girl I knew ... she is also my best friend, fiercest ally, and a constant source of accountability.

Supriya and I talk to each other before doing anything really big. So we beat up my idea of running for governor a good bit before I had the temerity to mention it to anyone else.

Funny enough, one of the first people I floated the idea to was the president of the United States. It was winter 2002, and I was on Air Force One. As an assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, I was way in the back of the plane. The Navy steward came to me and said, “The president would like to see you when you are done eating.” I don’t enjoy eating much anyway, so I went forward right away. I wasn’t sure what he wanted with me, though I had an inkling—I’d heard rumors he was thinking of asking me to work in the White House.

When I got to the front, President Bush was sitting with my boss, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson. Eventually, Karl Rove joined us. Truth be told, a few people had started talking about me possibly running for governor, so the president probably already knew about that, even though I considered it to be a state secret.

Sure enough, the president told me he had a job offer for me, but he’d heard I was thinking of going home to run for office. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s some kind of difficult to say no the president of the United States of America, and it’s even harder while you’re sitting on his plane. But he was extremely gracious; after I confirmed that I wanted to run for governor, he simply told me I should do that, if that’s what my passion was. I don’t think everyone sitting there agreed, in fact I’m sure of it, but their opinion didn’t matter—the big man had spoken. I went to the back of the plane before anyone could “revise and extend” his remarks, as they say in Washington. I sat down to find my seatmate had jammed everything in sight with an Air Force One logo into her purse.

Say what you want about President Bush, and plenty have, but I will always admire his generosity, candor, and honesty. He could easily have said, “No, I need you in this job, you have to do it for the
good of the country.” I was ready to say no anyhow, but he did not put me in that position. A true gentleman.

Admittedly, Supriya has a different interpretation of this conversation; she thinks the president let me off the hook so easily because he was sure he could quickly find someone else for the job. Of course, she’s wrong.

The only other person I sought counsel from was Haley Barbour. I had gotten to know Haley a little bit and I knew three things about him. First, he had been the most successful chairman the Republican Party has ever had. Second, he is a policy wonk like me. And third, he’s a southerner from our neighboring state of Mississippi, where he now serves as governor. But when I first talked to him, I was worried he would think I had lost my mind. He didn’t, or at least if he did, he didn’t say so. He encouraged me to explore running and put me in contact with Curt Anderson, a guy who had been his political director at the Republican National Committee, and who ended up helping my campaigns. Curt has been a close friend since.

Eventually, I made a final decision to run for governor. Many mistakenly view a political campaign as glamorous, full of adoring fans and appearances on the evening news. Perhaps it’s like that when you run for president, but that wasn’t my experience running for governor. Being a first-time candidate running in a field of seventeen candidates, many of whom were better-known and had more political experience than I had, was actually pretty far from glamorous.

On one campaign trip to north Louisiana, our campaign didn’t have much money so we mostly travelled by car, and I stayed in people’s homes whenever I could to save the price of a hotel. This trip came during a grueling part of the schedule, after we’d travelled several days without much rest. I was due to make a speech later that
evening, so I decided to lie down for an hour in the nearby home of a staffer’s cousin.

Looking back, I wish I’d paid more attention to the “For Sale” sign in the front yard—because just as I drifted off, the homeowner, a realtor, and some prospective buyers walked into the bedroom where I was sleeping. I’ll never forget what the homeowner said: “Oh, this is Bobby Jindal, he’s running for governor.” The buyers, I’m sure, were thinking, “Bobby who? And if he’s running for governor, why is he sleeping in your house in the middle of the day?” I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be dead. It worked and they left. Fortunately, the prospective buyers did not ask if I “conveyed” with the property.

My campaign took a long time to gain traction. The first poll we took had me in dead last with just 3 percent of the vote—and those 3 percent were probably confused. I had no network of donors and didn’t have my own fortune to sink into the race. I had a strong résumé and some good accomplishments on the policy front, but absolutely no idea how to run a campaign. Oh, and did I mention my parents are from India? Or that I was thirty-one years old? So, to put it mildly, there were a few skeptics of my campaign. The son of Indian immigrants running for governor in the Deep South? In the state where former KKK member David Duke made a credible run for governor? Sounds like a novel.

But I did have one thing going for me, in addition to Supriya, and that was then-Governor Mike Foster. Mike was a risk taker who hired me as a 24-year-old to run his Department of Health and Hospitals. Additionally, he was not the product of any political machine in Louisiana. When he first ran for governor, the pundits considered his candidacy a joke, so this was a road he’d been down before.

Mike is one of those types that make this country great. He believes that in America, if you can dream it, you can do it. He’s an anti-politician; a good ol’ boy if there ever was one. During his two terms as governor he rarely travelled to Washington; he just flat out doesn’t like the place and doesn’t think much good comes out of it. Besides, as he once told me, the hunting in D.C. is no good.

Our campaign office was a small house in Baton Rouge, the former headquarters of a funeral parlor business. Some would say that’s bad karma, but the rent was almost free.

On the campaign trail, I quickly learned something about myself: I really enjoy spending time with people. Some find it draining, but it energizes me. And it’s crucial for being a successful candidate; if you want to serve people, you need to be genuinely interested in their concerns. If you aren’t, the voters will figure that out. You can have all the money and the best commercials, but people can spot a phony.

That first campaign was a real start-up venture. We made do with what we had, waging an unconventional effort that relied heavily on exhausting travel and detailed policy ideas. The whole thing was held together with bailing wire and duct tape.

Many old pros warned me not to talk too much policy. They feared I would come off as a policy wonk, and that providing detailed plans would just give my opponents the rope for hanging me. I ignored that advice. In my view, it just wasn’t honest to ask voters to support me without offering them detailed proposals. Besides, what did I have to lose? Three percent?

Unable to afford TV commercials, we aired radio ads focusing on policy, not politics. We put forward a detailed plan with more than twenty specific reforms for the state of Louisiana, including a major ethics reform package to root out public corruption, a plan to attract
businesses to our state, a proposal to make it more affordable to launch a small business, and plans to reform education and healthcare. All these plans were more detailed than campaign documents are supposed to be—and all were designed to help Louisiana provide real career opportunities for our people. For too long, Louisiana had exported our most precious commodity to other states—our people. I was bent on giving our people more opportunities to prosper right here at home. Although the political hands still thought this was a dumb approach, the voters began to take notice. It turns out people are interested in what political candidates actually plan to do. Who knew?