Governor candidates look like good guys

All of the four leading candidates for governor had good messages for the people of Louisiana in their first debate last week. If the winner carries out his promises, the future of our state is hopeful.

Bobby Jindal, as usual, had a  mouthful of ideas. He bogged them down a bit, however, with a little too much detail on the technicalities of how they would work. Voters are just interested in what he will change and how that would benefit the state.

Foster Campbell stuck to his guns in pushing the main plank in his platform - - elimination of the state income tax and replacing the lost money with a processing fee on oil companies. Questions about the legality of such a fee, however, have been raised. Former Gov. Dave Treen tried to tax the oil companies back in his day but it failed.

Both Walter Boasso and John Georges were impressive in expressing their ideas in simple and not too lenghthy terms. Boasso seems determined to cut the cost of insurance for the state’s citizens and Georges wants to jump start the economy.

Except for Campbell’s desire to replace income tax with the oil company tax, any one of the candidates could have said almost anything the others said about what they wanted to do as governor. There were some differences on school vouchers. Georges is for them. Jindall would allow them in school systems that do not perform. Boasso and Campbell were opposed.

The candidates were very polite to each other except for a few digs here and there about Jindall’s reluctance to debate. The content was nothing like the silly and insulting TV commercials coming from the Boasso and Jindal camps.

From the looks of it, any one of the four lead candidates could make for a respectable governor of our great state. Since we have so many failings, as brought out in the debate, however,  the question is who can actually turn the state around to meet our many needs.

The candidates have two more scheduled debates. They probably won’t be as peaceful as the first one. Hopefully they won’t be as negative as some of their advertising.
All four candidates know the people of Louisiana don’t want the same ole, same ole. The real test of their effectiveness, however, will come when the winner has to deal with the legislature. That is where many ideas for good government fail.