Rare GOP loss

The week's news at a glance.

New Orleans

Lt. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was elected governor of Louisiana this week, in a rare victory for Southern Democrats. Republicans have won every other governor’s office in the deep South. Blanco will be the first woman to hold the post in Louisiana. Her opponent, Republican Bobby Jindal, 32, would have been the first governor in the U.S. of Indian descent. Jindal, a Rhodes scholar who ran the state health department at age 24 and its university system at 27, lost a late poll lead after Blanco ran an ad attacking him for cutting health programs. She also made Jindal’s youth an issue. “The ship of state doesn’t come with training wheels,” said Blanco, 60.

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