BATON ROUGE, La. - U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal easily defeated 11 opponents and became the state's first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction, decades after his parents moved to the state from India to pursue the American dream.
Jindal, a 36-year-old Republican, will be the nation's youngest governor. He had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov. 17 runoff.
"My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream. And guess what happened. They found the American dream to be alive and well right here in Louisiana," he said to cheers and applause at his victory party.
His nearest competitors: Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent; Independent John Georges had 167,477 votes or 14 percent; Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.
"I'm asking all of our supporters to get behind our new governor," Georges said in a concession speech.
The Oxford-educated Jindal had lost the governor's race four years ago to Gov. Kathleen Blanco. He won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans a year later but was widely believed to have his eye on the governor's mansion.
Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state's slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
"My administration has begun readying for this change and we look forward to helping with a smooth transition," she said in a prepared statement. "I want to thank the people of Louisiana for the past four years, though there is still much work to do in my last few months as your governor."
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Sarith's quote:
This is one of the example. Anyone can become a governor, senator, representative, and president of U.S.A. . My dream to see a Cambodian decendent to become a president of U.S.A. If Cambodian American become a president of U.S.A. or governor or senator or representative, he or she can deliberate Cambodia from dictatorship, from vietnamese invasion, from Thai sluter of Cambodian people.
One example, Jewish people lost their land to Parlestine for a thousand year. They were able to get it back, because they were using American military and European military to deliberate their country after world war II which was known as 7 days war. They were able to defeat Judan, Egypt, and Syreal.
Date: 10/21/2007
Url:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200 ....
Author: yahoo news
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