A Little Late on This...

...but over the weekend the WSJ had a great piece on Bobby Jindal's progress in Louisiana.

Less than a month after taking office Mr. Jindal called a special legislative session to push an ambitious package of reforms aimed at transforming the state's image as an ethical cesspool. Though he encountered some minor resistance, Mr. Jindal managed to pass most of what he wanted, including broad financial disclosure requirements for state legislators and public officials, bans on awarding state contracts to politicians and their family members, and tight restrictions on meals, tickets and other legalized graft used by lobbyists to ply compliant lawmakers.

...

No sooner had the first special session wrapped up than Mr. Jindal announced plans for a second – this one focused on state finances. Contrary to common perception, the years after Hurricane Katrina have been pretty good ones for Louisiana's bank account. The flood of reconstruction money and soaring revenues from oil and gas production have left state coffers bulging. Outgoing Gov. Kathleen Blanco, widely reviled for her administration's bungling of the post-Katrina rebuilding effort – left Mr. Jindal a $1.1 billion budget surplus.

Though he ran as a fiscal conservative, Mr. Jindal saw the one-time surplus as a chance to pump cash into the state's dilapidated infrastructure. To that end, in a manic one-week spending spree, Mr. Jindal doled out $300 million to help fortify crumbling levees and rebuild eroding barrier islands. He allocated more than $500 million to repair the state's roads, bridges, ports and schools. He even found tens-of-millions to seed a biomedical research facility and pay down the state's looming pension obligations.

Mr. Jindal simultaneously succeeded in repealing several corporate taxes long on the business community's hit list, and set up a transportation trust fund to ensure adequate funding for roads and bridges in the future.

This is conservatism at its best, as a sort of insurgency against the liberal status quo. Jindal has been mentioned as a potential VP for McCain, but it's too soon for that. He needs time to continue this good work in Louisiana, and when he's finally on a national ticket it should be as the name on the top.