WI: Jindal Elected Governor, 2003

RB,

I don't think the election of a new governor could produce sufficient butterflies to prevent Hurricane Katrina from happening.

You'd need something sufficiently big enough to affect climate. Someone posted a scenario where Gore won in 2000 and funded a program to restore the marshlands in the Gulf, but that didn't prevent the hurricane from occurring, it just softened the impact (so the city didn't flood).
 
One point that could butterfly away a lot of NOLA's flooding: If a President were to close the Missouri River-Gulf Outlet, there would be one less way for water to get into New Orleans. HOWEVER, Lousiana's Democrats AND Republicans would be screaming bloody murder due to the closure of a vital shipping shortcut.

One more point. Mississippi has still not recovered from Katrina, but Haley Barbour gets a pass. (Why? Mississippi has been under lower expectations than most states for a while, It's less populated, and while the response wasn't much, it was still more apparently competent than Louisiana's. Of course, Haley Barbour has been lauded to the skies by Republicans in any case...even though Mississippi's still unrecovered...and he's doing less to respond to the oil spill than Jindal.)

Finally, if Jindal gets picked as VP, it would likely be a major boost to the Republicans. He's a religious conservative, charismatic and an intelligent speaker. Plus he doesn't have numerous ethics investigations! Jindal could very well be the nominee in '12 with this scenario- and America and the Republicans wouldn't have to deal with Palin!
 
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