The Young Republicans were all over Louisiana campaigning this weekend. Our particular group went in to Natchitoches, pronounced /Na-kee-dish/, about an hour south of Shreveport and Minden, about half hour north of Shreveport. In Natchitoches, we campaigned for Rick Nowlin, who is running for state representative district 23 and Gerald Long, running for state senate district 31. Rick has run an amazing campaign. A couple months ago, he had 3% name recognition compare to his opponent, Joe Sampite who has 90% name recognition since Joe has been the mayor of the town for 20 years. Rick came out ahead with 35% of the votes and will be in a runoff with Joe who garnered 33%. If you live in the district, which includes Natchitoches and a small part of Winn parishes, please vote for Rick on Saturday, November 17th, 2007. Senator Long won out right with 54% of the votes, a great and sweet victory over Democrat Taylor Townsend. The race in Minden was lost but Bobby Jindall, who at 36 and of Indian descent, carried the night with 54% of the votes. He learned from his mistakes four years ago when he lost to Kathleen Blanco because he had decided to take the high road and not response to attacks. I learned from Jeff, our local field director that in Louisiana, the governor is pretty powerful because he gets to appoint the speaker of the state house and president of the state senate.