The Associated Press

New Orleans mayor not ready to endose gubernatorial candidate

Reporters piled into a downtown New Orleans hotel Thursday expecting to hear Mayor Ray Nagin announce his endorsement in the gubernatorial runoff.

Instead, Nagin endorsed Johnny Jackson Jr., a former New Orleans councilman and Louisiana House of Representatives member, in the Nov. 15 runoff for criminal district court clerk in New Orleans.

Nagin said he wasn't ready to choose between Republican Bobby Jindal of Baton Rouge and Democrat Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Lafayette but would make an announcement soon. He said he had been studying both candidates carefully and attending voter focus groups where he had learned that citizens "are looking for something new, someone fresh and are not as party specific."

Pressed by reporters to indicate who he was leaning toward, Nagin said the platforms of both candidates are nearly identical and "this race is too big to be partisan."

The mayor called both candidates "very knowledgeable" but said the deciding issue would be "Who can deliver?"

Afterward, the mayor asked the crowd: "Did I dodge that pretty well?"

Jackson is running against Nagin's former chief administrative officer, Kimberly Williamson Butler, who was forced out in the spring after clashing with members of the mayor's inner circle.

Jindal agrees high-speed Internet access is key to rural economic development

Republican candidate for governor Bobby Jindal of Baton Rouge agreed with state economic development officials who said Wednesday that getting high-speed Internet access in rural areas is a business need as basic as roads.

Department of Economic Development Secretary Don Hutchinson told legislators that areas without high-speed connectivity won't even get consideration from job-creating companies or businesses looking to move. "The communities that are not connected will be eliminated from the process immediately by these site-selection groups," he told a joint meeting of the state House and Senate agriculture committees.

Economic Development is working with information technology companies to produce a comprehensive map of where Louisiana generally does and does not have high-speed Internet connectivity, Hutchinson said. The map should be available by mid-December; the next governor takes office in January.

Jindal said high-speed Internet access is key to rural economic development. "I think we need to start considering it the same way we consider public utilities."

Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic candidate for governor in the Nov. 15 runoff, did not return a telephone call seeking comment on the issue.

Jindal said expanding rural high-speed Internet access also needs to be extended to homes as much as possible so students can keep up with the technology and research methods of their peers in other states.