The Nov. 4 general elections left Louisiana caught between a Democratic president-elect, a Republican governor and a newly re-elected Democratic United States senator. Now, many residents are searching for a place in the political spectrum.Hot-button issues included Gov. Bobby Jindal’s possible presidential bid and President-elect Barack Obama’s future, as neutral and partisan Louisiana political experts fielded questions Thursday from the League of Women Voters.Aaron Baer, communications director for the Louisiana Republican Party, called speculation over Jindal’s possible presidential run “premature.””Let’s at least get through the inauguration of our president-elect,” Baer said. “It was the longest campaign in history. Let’s take time to regroup.”Regrouping for the national GOP might include mimicking the Louisiana GOP, Baer said. He said the national party and its Louisiana branch are in “much different positions.””While the national GOP may be fighting … We are strong here in our state,” Baer said. “That is one of the challenges for our governor — for us to be a role model for how the national party rebuilds itself.”Lanny Keller, editorial writer with The Advocate, pointed to Jindal’s age as a reason to calm the hype.”The governor is 37 years old,” Keller said. “Twenty years from now, he will be 15 years younger than [Sen.] John McCain … So his time horizon is enormous.”Despite Baer’s assurances that the Louisiana GOP is secure, Kirby Goidel, University mass communication and political science professor, said Louisiana cannot yet be counted as a red state.”In Louisiana, Republicans have been waiting with paint brushes and buckets in hand to paint the state red,” Goidel said. “But the state remains defiantly purple.”Goidel said Louisiana’s alignment with McCain in the Nov. 4 election, Democratic Lieutenant Gov. Mitch Landrieu and a Democratic majority in the state house and the state senate are evidence of Louisiana’s “purple” stance.Goidel said the national GOP’s answer to “McCain’s schizophrenia in defining himself” and Gov. Sarah Palin’s “uniformed” stereotype may be Jindal. On the national scale, Obama, who Goidel likened to President John F. Kennedy, is unlikely to be “as revolutionary as either his critics or his supporters hoped,” Goidel said.”If you’re watching his early moves in his administration, he’s been moving the demands and the expectations that have been created by his remarkable campaign and his historic victory,” Goidel said. Albert Samuels, political science professor at Southern University, said the economic downturn may give Obama more leeway than previous presidents.”People might be a little more patient in some ways than they might be otherwise,” Samuels said. Britton Loftin, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party, said the party will work to spread its core principles like improved public education and health care. —-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]