Whiz Kidding

Pay more, get less What could be more brilliant?

In a section laying out privatization scenarios, the report states "in addition" to a planned premium increase instituted by OGB pre-sale, Chaffe's valuation of the agency assumes that a purchaser will increase premiums to maintain a pre-tax operating margin of 4.5-7%. The premium increase in 2013 would range from 4.8% to 7.6%, depending on the operating margin the private company was seeking, the report's analysis states.

[Read the Chaffe report yourself here (part 1) and here (part 2).]

The leak to the Advocate has leant ammunition to critics of the administration's plan.

"Premiums will rise and coverages will lessen," state Sen. Butch Gautreaux (D) told TPM in an email. "The cost of doing business will rise by more than 10 per cent and profits will have to include corporate taxes and ROI [return on investment] to stockholders."

I have to admit I didn't even read Jan Moller's Happy Birthday card to Bobby Jindal last week. But thanks to Clay's heads-up reminder that we had already developed our own term for Moller's characteristic Jindal hagiography, I thought it might be worth a few minutes to see if the Molleresque was still a viable genre of newsprint.

Indeed it is. Because Moller is the T-P's heavy load reporter at the capitol, and because I find his twitter feed especially helpful and informative during the legislative session, I am mystified that he continues to write about Jindal with such unblinking sycophancy. My best guess is that it's easier for a political reporter to define "success" in terms of personal advancement rather than policy accomplishment. Moller spends a lot of time and text marveling at Jindal's rise going so far as to liken his career to that of a show business prodigy.

In music and the arts, it's common for participants to peak in their 20s and 30s. The same goes for athletes, who are typically finished, or on the sharp downslope of their careers, when they hit 40.

But politics operates on a distinctly different clock. Forty was when George W. Bush began his famous conversion from privileged party boy to the devout teetotaler who would become governor of Texas and serve two terms as president.

Ronald Reagan was still a Hollywood actor -- and a Democrat -- when he turned 40 in 1951. It would be 16 more years before he became governor of California and 30 years before he became president.

Jindal, by contrast, has been a high-level political operator since an age when most people are trying to find a career path.

We're all too aware that Jindal sees his career in these terms. It's been clear for some time that the Governor focuses far more intensely on advancement than he does on governing. In this sense Jindal and Moller are just on the same wavelength. Maybe they share the same astrological sign or something. Should we have gotten a birthday card for Moller too?