Louisiana’s “jungle primary” is today. Any candidate who gets 50 percent of the vote wins; otherwise, the top two finishers, regardless of party, go to a runoff.  Most of the action is on the GOP side, in races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state (plus maybe a bit of a battle for attorney general). But the big thing to watch, from a national perspective, is the margin of victory Bobby Jindal will achieve in his run for re-election as governor. People aren’t giving this accomplishment enough credit. Until very recently, Louisiana wasn’t a pure red state, but merely reddish purple, with Clinton carrying it twice, Mary Landrieu winning for the Senate three times, and Al Gore being competitive for a while in 2000. The biggest reason, I think, for the switch to bright red is the work of Jindal. He hasn’t been as good a governor as I HOPED, but he has been so much better than the average Republican governor (not to mention the average Democratic governor) that he has raised his own bar high enough that people now take for granted what once would have been seen as superb.

Anyway, Jindal is the overwhelming favorite for re-election on the first ballot, with no runoff needed. If his margin of victory today is in the stratosphere, national conservatives really ought to take notice.