WILL BOBBY JINDAL BECOME THE GOP’S CHOICE FOR 2016?

…The Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal

Jindal is a real questionable “Dark Horse”, but stranger things have happened.

The National Governor’s Convention that’s held in Washington each year is usually a fairly tame meeting of all of the nation’s governors.  Even though it’s a combination of both Republican and Democratic governors, it is where each governor is there to see what kind of support they can expect to get from the feds, regardless of their party affiliations.

Apparently, this year, during the last day of meetings at the White House, these meetings brought the president’s Washington home a bit too close to the continuing presidential aspirations of Mr. Piyush “Bobby” Jindal.  (Yes, the governor of Louisiana’s first name really is “Piyush”.)

This time, the Louisiana governor just couldn’t hold back his feelings that had previously allowed him to be seen as a key GOP choice to run for the US presidency back in 2009. 

After the last dayof these latest White House governor’s meetings, this governor and other state chief executives had gathered in front of the White House, and in front of a group of news cameras, to discuss the results of the various talks with the president.  Now, these meeting are usually, mostly bi-partisan affairs, and as one conservative pundit wrote, “They’re supposed to be bipartisan-ish and leave the spleen venting to Congress.”

But being in this esteemed location, governor Jindal just couldn’t hold himself back.  He had taken the group’s microphone, made a few not-so-complementary-remarks about the president's meetings, and he ended his comments with, “the Obama economy is now the minimum-wage economy, and the president is waving the white flag of surrender.”

 

With that statement, everybody just stood there in disbelief for a few seconds.

However, another governor from a small New England state, took serious umbrage to governor Jindal’s remarks and very quickly responded in a somewhat machine-gun fashion. 

The Connecticut Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, then grabbed the microphone and began calling Jindal’s remarks “the most partisan statement that we’ve had all weekend”.  He then added that Jindal’s white flag comment was “the most insane statement I’ve ever heard.”

A smiling Jindal took the microphone again, adding that if his earlier comments were the most partisan thing Malloy had heard, “I want to make sure that he hears a more partisan statement.” And the argument continued from there.  But the Connecticut governor seemed to be much better prepared, and if it had been a formal debate, governor Malloy would have eventually taken home the trophy.

The point here is that even though he has not been on the current GOP’s presidential contenders radar, along with the New Jersey Governor, Chris Christy, and the Tea Party darlings of Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, it became obvious that the Louisiana governor is once again running for president in 2016.

No, “Piyush” hasn’t said so, but he clearly is running. His actions speak much louder than his words. He may not have expected this to be the event that showed he was throwing his hat into the ring….again.  But, he has inadvertently used this time and event to make his desires very clear that he is in the game.  

The reason I said “again” on throwing his hat into the ring, is that in 2009, Governor Jindal was being seen as a serious contender for the Republican nomination.  But after Governor Jindal delivered the official Republican response to President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, his potential nomination then went directly into the toilet.  In his response, Jindal called the president's economic stimulus plan "irresponsible" and argued against any government intervention.  The speech met with biting reviews from some members of both the Democratic and the Republican parties. Referring to Jindal as "devoid of substantive ideas for governing the country", political commentator Rachel Maddow, had summarized Jindal's Katrina remark as follows: "[Jindal states that] since government failed during Hurricane Katrina, we should understand, not that government should not be allowed to fail again, but that government...never works.”  Jindal’s presentation also came across as slow, immature and anything but as presidential material. 

After such a poor national televised response to the president, Governor Jindal’s presidential aspirations just faded into the night.

But I would suspect that after looking at the poor potential candidates that have surfaced so far for the GOP in 2016, apparently this southern governor has once again jumped on the Republican candidate band wagon.  To be successful in this endeavor, he must now be very aggressive for trying to convince the Republican base that he’s willing to jump into the pit with the best the Republicans have to offer.  But after what he failed to show with his latest weak arguments with governor Malloy, he obviously has a long road to hoe.

This could also bring a whole new vision to what the far-right wackos have been using with their “birtherism” issues with “Barack Hussain Obama”.  If governor Jindal were to become the nominee, Democrats could mentioned “Piyush Bobby Jindal” as often as Republicans have brought up “Barack Hussein Obama”.

And, since the GOP and Fox News have their issues with the president from “Kenya”, then the Democrats and MSNBC could have their issues with a presidential candidate from “Punjab”.

And to put it as the conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker put it this week, “And though Jindal is a Catholic convert — and he speaks with the natural lilt of his birth state of Louisiana — he is not visually “one of us” in the way some Republicans have demonstrated they’re most comfortable.”  In addition, as to Ms. Parker’s comments about Jindal’s past poor response to the 2009 state of the union speech, she wrote, “[In his response,] Rather than coming across as deliberative and thoughtful, Jindal seemed to be having an out-of-body experience enhanced by special brownies.”

Don’t get me wrong.  Governor Jindal is a very smart person and he was an exceptional Rhodes Scholar.  He was also the youngest governor to ever be elected in the US.

But it is still very questionable that a Southern Governor, that doesn’t “look like one of us”, that has already struck out in a previous attempt to run for the highest office, would become the Republican nominee.  But they had said that about “Barack Hussain Obama” and also about the previous governors of Arkansas and Georgia, who also became US presidents.  So anything really is possible.

So with that final statement, I must now end this article with, “Watch this space.”

Copyright G.Ater  2014