Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) Elected 2003, 1st term up Jan. 2008
Born:	Dec. 15, 1942, Coteau
Home:	Lafayette
Education:	U. of LA at Lafayette, B.A. 1964
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Raymond)
Elected  Office:	LA House of Reps., 1984-88; Public Service Comm., 1988-1995; Lt. Gov., 1996-2003.
Professional Career:	H.S. teacher, 1964-65; District Mgr., US Census Bureau, 1979-80. Political Consultant, 1981-84.
Office	State Capitol, P.O. Box 94004, Baton Rouge 70804, 225-342-0991; Fax: 225-342-7099; Web: www.gov.state.la.us.
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Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat, was elected governor of Louisiana in November 2003. She was born in the Cajun village of Coteau, in the sugar cane-producing region south of Lafayette. Her father was an Electrolux vacuum salesman and ran a carpet-cleaning business. The family later moved south to New Iberia; they loaded their three-bedroom house onto a flatbed truck and took it with them. Blanco graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, taught high school in southwest Louisiana, got married and raised six children. With her husband, she ran a market research and political polling business. In 1971, together they managed then-state Senator J. Bennett Johnston's campaign for governor in the Acadiana region, no picnic in an election where Congressman Edwin Edwards was seeking to become the state's first Cajun governor. Edwards narrowly defeated Johnston in the December runoff.

Blanco began her own political career in 1984 with an upset victory in an open state House race; outspent by a wealthy opponent, this was the first in a series of low budget, winning campaigns. In 1988, she was elected to the Public Service Commission, where she became the first woman to serve as a commissioner; she chaired the commission, which regulates utilities and phone companies, in 1993 and 1994. In 1991, she entered the race for governor against incumbent Buddy Roemer, in a contest that also featured former Governor Edwards and former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke; she withdrew after failing to raise enough money to compete.

In 1995, Blanco won the first of two terms as lieutenant governor. The low-profile position has little responsibility but it offered one role that turned out to be consequential. As the chief of the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Blanco had a platform that enabled her to travel to all 64 parishes to promote the state and, of course, herself. She claimed that under her leadership, tourism in Louisiana increased by 41 percent and led to the creation of 21,000 new tourism-related jobs.

Blanco joined in May 2003 what was already a very large field to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Mike Foster. In Louisiana, candidates of all parties compete in the October primary and then, if no one gets 50% of the vote, the top two finishers regardless of party compete in the November runoff. Blanco had two advantages that made her candidacy stand out in the primary--she was the only woman in the race and the only candidate from Acadiana. Her Democratic opponents included Attorney General Richard Ieyoub, former Congressman Buddy Leach, former state Senate President Randy Ewing; Republican candidates included state Senator Hunt Downer and Bobby Jindal, appointed by Foster at 24 as president of the Department of Health and Hospitals and later as head of the Louisiana state university system, and appointed by George W. Bush as HHS Assistant Secretary.

Blanco said she wanted to move beyond "the tired old politics of Louisiana" and stressed health care and education themes. She called for investing in pre-kindergarten programs for all 4-year-olds, laptops for 7th graders and increased teacher salaries. She opposed a processing tax on oil and gas and said her experience promoting Louisiana gave her greater economic development expertise than her opponents. For much of the primary campaign, Blanco remained atop the polls but insiders dismissed her candidacy, claiming she was too nice to win, lacked key interest group support or worse, that she was a lightweight. But in the October primary she finished second with 18% to Jindal's 33%, and ahead of Ieyoub, who had 16%, and Leach, who had 14%.

In the runoff against Jindal, Blanco focused on his youth, saying he was too immature to be governor. "The ship of state does not come with training wheels," she said. She promised to hold an emergency health care policy summit, chaired by Senator John Breaux and said she would not raise taxes unless education and health care spending was deeply threatened. Jindal signed a pledge not to raise taxes at all; he highlighted this as a key difference. Jindal often mentioned his connections to the Bush administration; Blanco ran radio ads that said the administration's negotiations in the Central American Free Trade Agreement would lead to lower tariffs on imported sugar, a volatile issue in sugar-producing Louisiana. Both candidates opposed abortion. In the final debate with Jindal, she was asked to name the "defining moment" in her life; she gave an emotional response, recalling the death of her 19-year-old son in an industrial accident in 1997.

She won 52%-48% to become the state's first female governor. Jindal carried the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Monroe metro areas and won by wide margins in the fastest-growing parts of the state: St. Tammany Parish outside New Orleans, Livingston and Ascension Parishes outside Baton Rouge, Bossier Parish outside Shreveport. But Blanco carried her home area, the Cajun country, by a wide margin, and Jindal carried only one of the northern parishes which most Republicans have been carrying in other statewide races.

Her first year in office was cautious and did not feature an ambitious legislative agenda. She held summits on health care policy and poverty. In February 2004 she was one of 5 governors, the only Democrat, on a Defense Department-sponsored trip to Iraq. She focused on economic development, frequently traveling out of state, and pointed to her success in persuading Union Tank Car Co. to build a $100 million manufacturing facility in Alexandria rather than Texas; she failed to convince State Farm to keep its insurance claims-processing center in Monroe. She stood up to the owner of the football Saints on the issue of state stadium subsidies and got teacher salary increases that averaged $360. Blanco sought permanent renewal of the 2.8% tax on business utility bills and a 7-year phaseout of taxes on corporate debt and business equipment and machinery; she compromised and got a 5-year renewal of the business utilities tax, and 6-year phaseout of the sales tax on machinery and business equipment and the elimination of the tax on corporate debt, beginning in 2006. In March 2005 Blanco traveled on a trade mission to Cuba. She dined with President Fidel Castro, drawing criticism from Republicans and Cuban groups back home; she said the unplanned dinner was good for business and she stipulated that the group could not talk about politics. "If somebody had come to Louisiana and did $15 million worth of transactions and I asked them to meet with me and they turned me down, I'd probably dry up some of that [business]," she said.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2003 runoff	Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D)	731,358	52%
	Bobby Jindal (R)	676,484	48%
2003 primary	Bobby Jindal (R)	443,389	33%
	Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D)	250,136	18%
	Richard Ieyoub (D)	223,513	16%
	Claude Leach (R)	187,872	14%
	Randy Ewing (D)	123,936	9%
	Hunt Downer (R)	84,718	6%
	Other	48,960	4%
1999 primary	Mike Foster (R)	805,203	62%
	William Jefferson (D)	382,445	30%
	Other	107,557	8%