Sunday, October 21, 2007

Jindal Wins & LSU Wins

Turns out the Louisiana gubernatorial election was anti-climatic as the front-runner Bobby Jindal (R) won outright. As I typed this, Jindal had 54 percent of the vote to become the nation’s first Indian-American governor. Editors untied from election pages inside The Times newsroom quickly turned to the nail-biter LSU-Auburn game after Jindal was declared winner around 11 p.m.

Next, I looked at the victory photograph of newly elected Caddo Coroner Dr. Todd Thoma, asking where is the exuberance. Multimedia editor Mike Silva explained Thoma cheered when LSU scored, but that was it. So, even that hot local race between Thoma and incumbent Dr. Mairus McFarland didn’t excite in the final moments.

Leave it to LSU on election night to give us a 30-24 victory that left a memory. They came through in the clutch as news pages needed to start clearing the floor at 11:30-11:45 p.m.

For those keeping score on election results, early editions were incomplete due to slow-reporting Bossier results. As numbers trickled in from slow-refreshing computer screens connected to the Secretary of State’s Web site and at the courthouses, we hit some snags trying to finish pages.

Some results were not available until after the press run. And The Times first edition has incumbent Attorney General Charles Foti doing much better than he actually did. We got the news that he would not make the runoff after starting the first press run. Read complete election results for more.

Some editions of The Times will be delayed this morning because we held for the latest news. That said, most editions will provide a rather complete read. Return to the Monday Times for gubernatorial race precinct-by-precinct charts and for a few select races. It is always fun to look at how your voting location did.

For now, congratulations to the winners and to those making runoffs.
Read complete election coverage.

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