A reader from Louisiana writes in response to my earlier post with an interesting perspective on the current wave of Jindalmania. She isn't so sure he's everything the national media is making him out to be. I'm not setting this as a block quote, since it's a little long, but do read the whole thing.

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I wanted to tell you a little about some of the perceptions right now in Lousiana in regard to Jindal. He is really getting a lot of positive coverage from the national media, but these stories don't really give the whole picture and some of the accounts are just too glowing and premature. However, if all I ever read and saw were the national news stories on him, I would be really excited about him, too.

First, let me say that everyone I know voted for him last time around against Blanco and were shocked he didn't beat her. In fact, the night of the election, the first time he ran, a few of us were praying the Rosary that he would win. Of course he did win, it just took four years for it to happen. After Katrina and Rita, people who had initially supported Blanco were astounded at how ill-equipped she was for the job and how badly she handled things (well, along with a couple of other politicians.) He won pretty easily the second time around.

Since he has been in office, he and his supporters worked to pass an impressive ethics bill, which I think is great. Even if it does not accomplish everything Jindal hopes, it will do a lot for the state's image and spurring economic development in the state. . . .

Now for the not-so-good-part. Jindal asked some retired Louisiana National Guard generals to put together a report on the state of the National Guard in the wake of multiple deployments to Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, etc. When the report came back, it showed that the generals found low morale, leadership problems and nepotism. Jindal refused to meet with the generals about the report and then his press secretary Melissa Sellers told the media the report never existed. The generals, however, stand by the report. (My husband was in the Guard and was in Iraq.) This is just ridiculous. These guys do not need to be going back this soon (if at all). One of the reasons Hurricane Katrina was such a disaster was that we didn't have the NG levels here to help out because they were in Iraq. I just wonder if this report had not been supressed, if this Louisiana NG group would be on alert now.

As of late, Jindal is giving the attittude -- whether he means to or not -- that he is only going to talk to national media. He and his staff have repeatedly given no-comments (and just ignored calls altogether) to local and state media questions on an array of issues, from ethics issues to tax cuts. Since he became governor, his office has become the most "closed off" (in terms of information shared with the public) of any governor's office in the country.

Others are criticizing him for not being a true fiscal conservative.

My overall concern is that Jindal really just another Bush/McCain "conservative." Plus, he has an awful lot of work to do down here, and as of lately, he seems more interested in doing "The Tonight Show" and spending the weekend with John McCain than addressing voting state and local residents concerns (albeit through the media) . . .

[I]f McCain picked Jindal and Jindal agreed, I would be even more disinclined to vote for McCain than I already am. It would seem Jindal really put himself and his political future ahead of this state and the people who supported him. He would be leaving before he got the job done.