I woke up at 5:30 in the morning on Oct. 22, 2011, with the express purpose of driving to the Baton Rouge Fire Department Station on Brightside Drive to cast a defiant ballot against Gov. Bobby Jindal.

I’ve never pushed a button with such vitriol before. I hit that ballot like it was Bobby’s face.

I’m a Democrat — a disaffected, pissed off, disillusioned Obama-hating Democrat in the heart of a state that’s redder than a Ponchatoula Strawberry.

It’s been a pretty dismal few years for folks like me.

Between Obama’s warmongering and the weird Ayn Rand-esque objectivist social experiment Jindal calls state government, I haven’t had anyone to root for — until now.

Last Wednesday, John Bel Edwards, leader of the Louisiana House Democratic Caucus, announced he was running for governor, which is a relief, because functional democracies ought not be one-party states.

And as much as I truly loathe Jindal, Louisiana Democrats didn’t even field a candidate in 2011 — no offense, Tara Hollis.

I bet most of you didn’t even get that last reference, which just goes to show how much of a train wreck this whole thing has become.

I assume Edwards decided to announce his candidacy two years before the election so as to give himself plenty of time to remind the rest of Louisiana there is an actual Democratic Party still in existence in this state.

I don’t give a damn if the national party has written off Louisiana and its eight electoral votes, but somebody has got to put a stop to this madness, and we’ve had a lot of luck with fellas with the surname Edwards in the past.

At this point, I’d vote for an actual donkey over anyone Jindal endorsed.

Frankly, I don’t know much about Edwards, but he realizes endless budget cuts are not the solution to this state’s problems, and neither is eliminating the state income tax or closing prisons and mental hospitals.

Or watching unmoved as his state’s flagship university sinks like it’s been torpedoed.

At least that’s what he told Jim Inkster on NPR-affiliate WRKF on Wednesday. But after the last few election cycles, I’m not exactly optimistic when it comes to the efficacy of people running for office.

Still, I sure as hell don’t want Senator David “Grabby-Hands” Vitter at the helm.

Anyone who can describe Jindal’s school voucher plan as “bold” and “transformational” is clearly a stumbling half-wit.

I’d rather we take all of the murderers and crazy people Bobby let loose and put them in charge. We’d be providing a social safety net to the reformed and mentally infirm. It would be more humane, and the state would probably run better, too.

So what do we know about John Bel Edwards?

He’s the son of a former Edwin Edwards confidant, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Frank Edwards Jr. He’s a West Point graduate and a former U.S. Army officer, and he’s been an outspoken critic of Jindal’s wacky and nonsensical education “reforms.”

All plus marks by my accounting.

Regardless of if John Bel Edwards wins, his decision to run is key.

It’s high time someone challenged the Jindal machine and gave voice to the hundreds of thousands of folks who’ve been crippled by his résumé building.

If we — and Representative Edwards — can’t beat ’em, we can at least put them in check, letting them know we’re still part of this state, and we still have a hand to play.

Nicholas Pierce is a 23-year-old history senior from Baton Rouge.