He has really dropped off the national radar. Should be on the VP list.
Why Bobby Jindal (still) matters Posted by Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake at 07:23 AM ET, 10/24/2011
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal thanks supporters during his re-election victory party at the Renaissance Hotel in Baton Rouge on Saturday. (AP Photo/The Times-Picayune, Michael DeMocker)
It was a marked changed from this time four years ago when Jindal’s victory — he was the first Indian American to win a governorship — drew national headlines and installed him as a major rising star within the GOP.
Despite the relative lack of attention that Jindal’s re-election garnered, it’s worth looking at its breadth — and the way he won it — for signs of what sort of candidate Jindal will be when his time on the national presidential stage comes. (And, yes, it is coming.)
Jindal won 66 percent of the vote in a 10-way primary, the highest victory percentage for any candidate since the state instituted its so-called “jungle primary” in 1978. He won every one of the 64 parishes (they’re Louisiana’s counties).
Jindal’s political domination in the state over the past four years was evident downballot as well, as Democrats failed to field candidates for lieutenant governor or secretary of state.
In his victory speech, Jindal sounded rhetorical themes that could easily be ported into a national campaign sometime between now and 2020. He insisted he wouldn’t talk about what the state had accomplished over the past four years because “that was yesterday, and as Louisianans and as Americans ... we are relentlessly focused on the future, not the past.” (Hello, Ronald Reagan!)
The New Orleans Times Picayune’s Stephanie Grace described Jindal’s victory as a “mandate,” adding that the governor is likely to make major pushes on education and health care reform over his next four years — issues with major resonance at the national level.
“Jindal may be a lame duck in Baton Rouge, but that doesn’t mean his days of positioning himself for the next election are over,” Grace added.
What will be interesting is, with worries about re-election behind him, how forcefully Jindal emerges as a spokesman on the national stage — and what he says and does with the platform afforded him.
In a recent speech at a Republican National Committee gathering in Tampa, Jindal warned his party against the folly of “hating” President Obama.
“I have no doubt that President Obama loves this country, I have no doubt that he spends every day trying to make things better, and I have no doubt that President Obama wants the best for this country,” Jindal said. “I also have no doubt that what President Obama thinks is best for this country is in reality a complete disaster.”
That’s an interesting argument to make to a Republican Party in which large swaths of the base simply do not believe Obama is working to make things better.
Jindal’s might not be a winning argument in 2012. But, he isn’t running for president. Yet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-bobby-jindal-still-matters/2011/10/23/gIQAr9fACM_blog.html
