Quin Hilyer raises a criticism of Bobby Jindal that I think ought to be addressed. Here it is, in part:
I have lots of sources in Louisiana, of course, and from a wide variety of unrelated sources, I am hearing the same thing: Bobby Jindal so far is what MORE than one source, completely independent of each other, described in identical words: "the most isolated governor I have ever seen." The word is that his bright young staffers are also his arrogant young staffers. They are so sure of themselves that they aggregate power to themselves by acting as if their gatekeeper role is not just to keep too many people at once from going through the gate to see the Guv, but to keep the gate almost entirely shut. Even the friendly media is complaining -- and most LA media right now wants to be friendly, because their desperate desire for reform overcomes any ideological predispositions to the left right now; I have had quite liberal media folks down there tell me how excited they were that Bobby won the election. But now reporters feel shunned -- and the LSU student press has been terribly ill treated, which is really dumb by the Jindal team because the student press could easily be inspired by Jindal's reformist nature.
A few things, first off: I think Quin may be a bit too generous in evaluating the motives of his friends in the Louisiana press corps.
The attitude I saw displayed both on election night and at multiple press conferences was not one of shared optimism, but rather a combination of befuddlement and chagrin: they just don't know what to think of this cleancut policy wonk, and they're determined to find his hidden flaws, or invent ones if they find none. The fact that the whip-smart Jindal staff - as I've said before, they'd be a crack outfit for a President of the United States - is none too thrilled to deal with media organizations who listed the schools where the Jindal staff's kids attend on the front page should not come as a surprise. And a lot of the media in Louisiana, including the LSU paper, hate Gov. Jindal because of the hospital issue - an issue on which he is completely correct.
Of course Gov. Jindal needs to be encouraged to engage the right people, yes. And not everyone will be happy when a new governor comes to town, and the old sources dry up. But the Governor has been far from isolated. He's been so open, in fact, he's invited bloggers to interview him the Governor's Mansion - something that I hope will be a sign of just how innovative he's going to be when it comes to communications.
I happen to know that Quin was invited to that event, but he chose not to come. In the future, I'd encourage him to sit down with the Governor and ask this question himself. In my experience, he's been one of the most willing politicians I've ever seen when it comes to answering questions from all comers.