Blanco: Legacy should be more than Katrina

(AP) – Kathleen Blanco marked her time in politics with a string of historic firsts, but her history-making turn as Louisiana’s first female governor was trumped by Hurricane Katrina.

As Blanco ends her four-year term, she wants to be remembered as much for education milestones and economic development efforts as for coping with a brutal hurricane. She must wait to learn if historians will judge her less harshly than many of Louisiana’s citizens already have.

“We moved the state forward on so many fronts that it’s just a powerful story. And I know the story’s lost in the drama of the storm, but I think when sober people look at the results and the facts, that all will be told in a proper sequence and proper understanding,” Blanco, 65, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“It’s more than just a storm story.”

The Democratic governor leaves office Jan. 14, turning over the reins of government to Republican Bobby Jindal.

Her legacy includes raising public school teacher pay to the Southern average, a long-sought goal of Louisiana politicians; plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into colleges; overhauling the prison system for juveniles and traveling the world seeking business for the state.

She spearheaded elimination of millions of dollars in business taxes seen as impediments to economic development and used a state surplus to fund road construction and repairs. At a time of emerging partisanship at the state Capitol, she battled with Republican lawmakers who scuttled a cigarette tax proposal and fought her spending plans.

But political watchers agree Blanco will be defined by – and saddled with – her response to the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane that killed more than 1,400 Louisianians, displaced hundreds of thousands and flooded 80 percent of New Orleans.

“The story is always going to be what happened with Katrina. I don’t know any way around that,” said Shreveport political analyst Elliott Stonecipher. “She was not prepared for what Katrina brought. But would anybody have been? That’s where the historians take over.”

Katrina and the follow-up blow of Hurricane Rita cratered Blanco’s re-election plans.

The hurricanes struck near the midpoint of her term, and the images broadcast to the world showed thousands of people stranded on rooftops and on highway overpasses – and a government slow to respond.

Blanco, who often stumbles in speeches, was criticized as unprepared and indecisive. The recovery she guided moved ploddingly. Nearly 28 months after Katrina, evacuees remain in trailers, and south Louisiana neighborhoods are filled with blighted homes.

Barry Erwin, head of the nonpartisan Council for A Better Louisiana, said Blanco will shoulder much of the blame, though government failure at all levels is well documented.

“She has to take the brunt of every negative thing that happened because that’s where the buck stops. Is that all fair? No,” he said.

Blanco said the state’s miseries were exploited by Republicans in Washington sensing political gains. “They saw opportunities, and they saw the misery, and they saw they could play on the emotions of people,” she said.

The harsh glare and sharp criticism aimed at Blanco after Katrina was a dramatic deviation from the little, though mainly positive, attention received in her 20 years in politics.

The former school teacher from a tiny town in Cajun country moved steadily and quietly through politics, rarely creating controversy. Before becoming governor, she served eight years as lieutenant governor – an office that handles ribbon cuttings and tourism.

Her tenure in the state House and on the Public Service Commission created few ripples.

Bob Mann, Blanco’s communications strategist for Blanco during the hurricanes and now a Louisiana State University professor, said he thinks views of Blanco’s post-Katrina stewardship will soften.

He said the White House was desperate to force its own disaster response failures onto Blanco’s shoulders.

Asked what might have changed if she could have foreseen Katrina, Blanco replied, “I would have hired a (public relations) firm. I would have spent a million dollars and protected my image.”

She called that concern shallow, but added, “I just thought I could shout more loudly than the noise around me, but in the end I couldn’t. There was just too much pain.”

Stonecipher said the shortcomings didn’t rest solely with Washington politics, but also with Blanco’s abilities.

“We elect governors to handle crises just like we elect presidents to, and we want them to have the ability and the skill to lead us through the crisis. She couldn’t and she didn’t,” Stonecipher said.

In the midst of the recovery chaos, Blanco received some praise for championing government reforms.

She agreed to consolidate the state’s fractured system of levee boards and require experience of board appointees. She worked to streamline New Orleans government, institute a new state building code and coordinate coastal protection.

She traveled to Washington, D.C., nine times seeking billions of dollars in recovery aid and created a new agency, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, to guide the spending. LRA Chairman Norman Francis called Blanco “a fighter when our state had so much need.”

But her signature recovery program, Road Home – providing grants to homeowners – moved too slowly for residents trying to rebuild their lives. ICF International Inc., the private company hired by Blanco’s office, drew widespread criticism for its red tape. Lawmakers and citizens said the company didn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation.

The program is now in stride, with more than 82,000 grants awarded. But it was too late to save Blanco from a barrage of criticism. She announced in March that she wouldn’t seek re-election.

Road Home “was her opportunity to repair her reputation and to rebuild her political standing with the electorate,” Mann said. “If the recovery had been perceived as being successful, people would have given her another opportunity and another look, but that went down the drain.”

Louisiana voters are mixed on Blanco. An October poll by Southeastern Louisiana University showed 45 percent of respondents approving her performance and 43 percent disapproving. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Now heading home to Lafayette, Blanco is introspective and working on a book about her life. She hopes to have it ready for an editor by August. She said she doesn’t foresee continuing in politics, but hedged a bit. “I have learned never to say never.”

Gov. Kathleen Blanco joined officials in August 2006 in celebrating the grand opening of the South Central Planning and Development Commission on Main Street in Houma.