NEW ORLEANS - It's one of those clear, crisp beautiful fall late afternoons in New Orleans, the kind that is a reward to locals who survived August and to thousands of tourists already roaming the streets of the famed French Quarter.

On the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter streets, right in front of The Cat's Meow karaoke bar, the six-foot Bobby Jindal is a standout, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and gold tie, as a camera crew interviews him for a live Internet show.

"What question would Jindal ask Jesus?" asks humorist Chris Rose, the show's host.

"Why did he make lima beans?" the quick-witted Jindal responds. This is a humorist's show and nothing about it is reverent.

A woman, standing in for the absentee Kathleen Blanco, reads her answer. "Will I get into heaven?"

The laughter melds into the clop-clop of a red mule-drawn red carriage, one of those tourist buggies containing four enthralled passengers who are straining to see who's being interviewed.

The deep voice of the driver, who has been delivering his take on the mystique of New Orleans, turns to them and gestures down to Jindal, who turns as if on cue. "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is probably the next governor of this state. He's a Republican, but I may vote for him, and I'm a Democrat."

Jindal, who has been studiously courting black voters, especially in New Orleans, beams.

"Thank you very much," he says to the driver, then turns to the tourists: "Welcome to New Orleans." They smile, wave and snap photos, and they're gone, on to other sites and sounds of one of the most famous streets in America, named not for Kentucky Bourbon as activity there might lead one to conclude, but the House of Bourbon that is Jindal's conservative political ancestry.

Conservative roots

Jindal, 32, is working hard to crack New Orleans, hoping to get beyond his 21 percent primary showing and attract a healthy hunk of the 3 out of 4 voters who went Democratic in the primary.

A gray-suited white man strolls up and gives Jindal a check. He is Max Maxwell, 52, who's in the oil business. "We're Republican. We voted for Randy Ewing (a Democrat) in the first."

"I got a contribution just standing here on Bourbon Street," Jindal quips, his easy laugh a characteristic that just doesn't come across on television. Jindal is intelligent, intense and committed but also believes in laughing a lot - including at himself.

"I have actually gained a couple few pounds on the campaign trail. We eat at McDonald's a lot. I eat from their chicken menu." But it is, he laughs as he pats himself on the belly, incongruous to mention nutrition and McDonald's in the same breath.

The reason he's at McDonald's so much, explains his press secretary, Webster native Trey Williams, also 32, is that "Bobby doesn't stop to eat at restaurants."

From the beginning, way back in February, Jindal has worked daily crossing the state, first only with Williams as his driver, now in a convoy of one marked state police car, another car with a state police driver and an unmarked trailing state police car.





The state troopers have provided security for runoff candidates for the past 30 years, since the assassinations and attempted assassinations of the 1960s. For Jindal, the reality of him being in the Nov. 15 gubernatorial runoff set in when the showed up on primary night Oct. 4.

"I knew they were coming. I had been told they were coming, but it wasn't real until I opened the door and there they were."

Whereas there was more spontaneity, there now are schedules to coordinate with the state police. The schedules are coordinated the night before.

In the beginning, Gov. Mike Foster put Jindal in touch with his contributors and important players throughout the state. Jindal then won the support of the Christian Right with such things as his very conservative platform - including no abortions under any circumstances and unlimited school vouchers without requiring recipient schools to meet state accountability standards. He solidified this base by advertising for months on talk radio, promising to fight off any gun control efforts and to "uphold our constitutional rights and conservative values" and asking "What's so wrong with the Ten Commandments?"

The effort paid off in midsummer, when Jindal began a steady rise in the polls, eclipsing other Republican candidates, all of whom save state Rep. Hunt Downer of Houma dropped out.

Knowing that he was assured of a runoff spot some three weeks before the Oct. 4 primary gave Republicans a competitive advantage in the runoff. They were able to plan his campaign and came out of the box with a heavy television buy by the Republican Governors Association that began the Sunday night after the primary election. Jindal continues to advertise on talk radio, promising to remain conservative and not change.

Crossing over

His runoff strategy has had multiple facets: a negative campaign painting Democrat Kathleen Blanco of Lafayette as being too negative, both by Jindal and the Republican Party; a concerted outreach to black voters; an emphasis on his intellect and experience as a policy director in health matters and endorsements, particularly from blacks. He also is on black radio, unusual for a Republican, in an ad that says party doesn't matter.

Shreveport demographer Elliott Stonecipher says Jindal needs 15 percent of the black vote, coupled with 2 out of 3 white voters, to win. Traditionally, Republican candidates have not gotten more than 5 percent of the black vote in a statewide race in Louisiana.

Jindal's open courting of black leaders has resulted in endorsements by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a small black conservative ministers' group called CLOUT and BOLD, for Blacks United for Leadership Development, one of those acronymic black political organizations that makes a street effort on election day to turn out candidates for their ticket.

In Shreveport, also a majortity-black city, black leaders have been split. But the high-profile endorsement of Jindal by Dr. C.O. Simpkins, a long-time community and civil rights leader, has helped Jindal gain a foothold into traditional Democratic territory in Northwest Louisiana.

In New Orleans, BOLD members, including Darren Mire, accompany Jindal on his rounds. Mire is one of the city's seven elected tax assessors, his district covering the Central Business and Warehouse districts and the Lower Garden District, once called the Irish Channel.

Mire is the ranking elected official of BOLD who stayed with the group's decision to endorse Jindal.

With BOLD's help, Mire says, Jindal can get the 15 percent of black votes statewide a Republican candidate needs to win. "Basically, we are telling them (black voters) that it's OK."

At the office of the New Orleans Tribune, the upscale black-oriented magazine's publisher, Beverly McKenna, is impressed with Jindal. "I think it is yours to lose." Jindal asks for her endorsement, later received, but pledges an open-door policy no matter what.

Jindal "is reaching out like no Republican before him," Mire said. "He is touching many voters."

Break from tradition

BOLD members accompany Jindal to Kinglsey House, a 107-year-old child and adult day-care facility in the Irish Channel founded to serve Irish children but whose clients now are neighborhood blacks.

In the day-care center, Jindal runs into a class of about 20 preschoolers. He squats so he meets them at eye level. The children, mindful of the cameras, want to get in the picture.

Chad Alexander holds his hand, and then the youngster looks into the cameras, grinning. Jindal, who goes home as often as possible to get up with his 2-year-old daughter, knows how to talk with children.

In the cafeteria, he shakes hands with each of about 60 senior citizens eating a noon meal. Jindal is oblivious to the large-screen TV, where a Blanco ad is running. He is focused only on the diners, introducing himself and asking for their votes.

"He is really reaching about and touching people," Mire said. "Much more so than other Republicans."

Jindal, whose parents came to Louisiana from India, "can talk about his father and his being a first-generation American," Mire said.

Jindal's parents came to this country for advanced education. His father, Amar Jindal, is a civil engineer. His mother, Raj Jindal, is an information technology specialist who is assistant secretary of the state Labor Department. Jindal's IQ tested at 146 as he went through the gifted program in the East Baton Rouge School System.

Raised in their native Hindu religion that teaches acceptance, Jindal accepted the Christianity of his Baton Rouge peers. A pivotal moment he recalls occurred while he attended an Easter program at The Chapel on the Campus, an LSU area church, where he watched a film about the Crucifixion.

Jindal talks about the "long, slow process" that took him from the Hindu religion of his family into Catholicism. "It was intellectual at that point." He was attracted to the sacraments of the Catholic Church, which he joined while at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

His wife, Supriya, also raised in the Hindu faith, converted to Catholicism after their wedding at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Baton Rouge.

While his parents did not like his decision, they accepted his conversion.

It was at Brown that Jindal got his first taste of public policy when he applied for an internship with U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery of Shreveport. McCrery gave Jindal his first political job in Washington, D.C. where Jindal also gained the respect of U.S. Sen. John Breaux, now a strong supporter of Jindal's opponent in this gubernatorial race.

Breaux and McCrery opened the door that led to Foster naming Jindal, then age 24, as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals in 1996. Jindal has held a series of politically appointed jobs ever since, spending about two years in each - within the state and again in Washington, D.C.

Each time Jindal left Louisiana, though, he always pledged to come back and always has pledged to raise his family here long before he took aim at the governor's mansion. When first appointed to the top health job, he had an optimism about his home state few young people here share.

A personal touch

Kingsley House is impressive, and Jindal pledges to do what's possible to help relieve a 250-kid waiting list. He likes the dual approach of caring for children and their grandparents and great-grandparents. "Even nationally, it is recognized that the combination of Head Start and adult day care is important. I am extremely impressed."

Whisked away by his handlers, Jindal is asked if his ethnic background helps him relate to minorities. "I think there's a natural curiosity about me. People tell me things like 'I've seen you on TV.' They say I look taller, thinner or fatter."

Jindal has opened a campaign headquarters in New Orleans East, where 100,000 people live, including many blacks, Hispanics and Vietnamese. At a shopping center, he greets the owner with the Indian term of respect: "Uncle Gowri."

Gowri Kalas, a friend of Jindal's in-laws, arranged a private meeting with New Orleans East political and civic leaders, including Sen. Jon Johnson and former state Rep. Sherman Copelin - both powerful black New Orleans politicians. They seek his help in developing new industry in New Orleans East, the only area of the city with large amounts of undeveloped land.

In a small store in the shopping center, Jindal's campaign headquarters reflects the ethnic diversity of his runoff campaign.

Janice Montelepre, 67, says she's working for Jindal because of his anti-abortion stance. "I am very pro-life, from the womb to the tomb."

Jindal's personal outreach will result in his surprising everyone by winning, she says.

"When he speaks to you, he looks you right in the eye. And when a person looks at you right in the eye, you know he's a good person."