I didn't know God made honky tonk gub'nas

Hank Thompson used to sing some classic cheatin' songs about the likes of Bobby Jindal.

AND IT LOOKS LIKE Louisiana done got itself stuck with a honky-tonk angel because -- as Jerry Lee's cousin Mickey Gilley could have told voters last year -- the candidates all look prettier at closin' time. And it's been last call for the Gret Stet for some time now.

So now, after folks thought they'd found themselves a sweet young thing who was going to make them feel alive again . . . who was going to cure what ailed 'em . . . who was going to be their sunshine, their only sunshine . . . who'd make them happy when skies were gray. . . . Well, it's starting to look like a down-on-its-luck state gave its heart away only to get a rust-standard ethics law and an earful of sweet nothing before Gov. Honky Tonk Angel went social-climbing after a rich old man.

The New York Times, that private dick of the public record, is talking out of school and naming names:

Senator John McCain is planning to meet this weekend with at least three potential Republican running mates at a gathering at his ranch in Arizona, suggesting that he is stepping up his search for a vice president now that the Democratic contest appears basically decided, according to Republicans familiar with Mr. McCain’s plans.

Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a one-time rival for the Republican nomination, have all accepted invitations to visit with Mr. McCain at his ranch in Sedona, these Republicans said.

After a week of campaigning, Mr. McCain is heading home on Friday for three days without a public schedule. His campaign described this as a social weekend that would include a number of couples, and — as has been its policy it declined to discuss any aspect of the vice presidential search.

“We don’t talk about the V.P. selection process,” said Steve Schmidt a senior adviser.

In addition to Mr. Crist, Mr. Jindal and Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain’s guest list includes some of top his political counselors, among them Charlie Black, a senior strategist, and Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, his frequent traveling companion and probably his closest colleague in the Senate.

If the gathering does not involve actual interviews, as some of Mr. McCain’s associates said Wednesday, it will provide Mr. McCain with a chance to know some potential running mates in a social context. Mr. McCain is known as a social and gregarious candidate and senator, and his associates said personal chemistry would be a key consideration in his choice.

The gathering is taking place on a weekend when Mr. McCain is releasing his health care records, itself a high-profile event that could — by design or not — draw attention away from the event at the Arizona ranch.

The identities of the potential running mates who have been invited to Sedona is not a surprise: Mr. Romney, Mr. Crist and Mr. Jindal have been on most lists of potential running mates, and they have made no secret of their interest. And even the perception that they are under consideration could be more a matter of appearance than reality: the mere impression that Mr. McCain is considering Mr. Crist of Florida, for example, could by itself help him in a critical state where Mr. McCain campaigned Wednesday

Still, Mr. Cain’s gathering comes as Senator Barack Obama appears to have all but nailed down the Democratic nomination in his competition with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and its timing suggests an acceleration in reaching a decision that several Republicans said could prove critical to Mr. McCain’s success in a tough political environment for their party. Mr. McCain, arguably more than most presidential candidates, has a lot riding on choosing a running mate who could make up for any weaknesses in his own résumé and give him a boost in his public standing.

Mr. McCain himself has said his choice of a running mate would draw particular scrutiny from voters, given his age; he is now 71 year old, or “as old as dirt,” as he likes to joke, while quickly adding that he is in good health.

More than that, with Mr. Obama’s selection now almost assured, Mr. McCain is contemplating a contest involving an energized electorate that has put a focus on race and gender.

(snip)

Mr. Jindal, who was born in Baton Rouge, La., to a family that had just arrived there from the Punjab area of India, took office as Louisiana’s governor in January after serving three years in the House of Representatives. Mr. Jindal, who was born a Hindu but became a Roman Catholic as a teenager, campaigned for governor as a social conservative, opposing human embryonic stem cell research and abortion in any form and favoring teaching “intelligent design” in schools as an alternative to evolution.

But Mr. Jindal also has a reputation as a policy wonk, like the Clintons, with a specialty in health care issues. After graduating in 1991 from Brown University, where he majored in biology and public policy, and attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Mr. Jindal worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company and was executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. He later served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and in the Bush administration as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for planning and evaluation.

ME, IF I WERE LOUISIANA, I'd be thinking that I'd been played. That I'd been suckered into taking home a purty little thing who looked and talked like an angel, but who -- after I'd lived with her for a spell -- turned out to be just another common little tramp.

And, unfortunately for me, that realization would have come after the little floozy had spent all my money, drank all my liquor, given me a social disease and then went runnin' off after Mr. Moneybags. Or somebody who might could set her up in a much nicer place than what I could.

What is it that Bobby Jindal has been telling newly minted high-school and college graduates all across the state? That "there's no place like home" and that "you can dream big right here in Louisiana"?

I'LL TELL YOU TRUE, podna. The gub'na ain't going to Sen. McCain's Arizona hacienda to make the case for more federal aid down on the bayou. He's going down there to audition for a new job only a few months after you hired him to fix what ails Louisiana.

Jindal indeed might think "there's no place like home," but I'll garon-damn-tee you that he thinks there's a place better than home. That would be Washington, D.C.

After all, the shotgun shack by the tracks might be quaint and all . . . and, of course, it's plenty good for the likes of you rustics. But the Golden Boy obviously thinks he can do better. Surely you will understand, Louisiana.

Surely you can see why your sweetheart just had to leave you. Leave you in that smoky old honky tonk, sittin' there cryin' in your beer.

SITTIN' THERE. Sittin' there just a poor as you ever were. Just as ignorant as always. Just as sick, and just as tired. And you can't even hold down a good economy.

You thought you had found yourself a honky-tonk angel -- a purty little thing -- at closin' time. You thought she'd write you a new chapter . . . a happy ending to your hard-luck story.

And all she's itchin' to write you is just another damn Dear John letter.

Hell, Hank Thompson could have told you that.