In an
interview with the T-P's Stephanie Grace, John Georges lets fly with a nasty allegation about Bobby Jindal:
"This race has been about the two of us [Jindal and Georges] from Day One. They've been obsessed with us since the day I called him a midwife... when he orchestrated the delivery of his child," a reference to the at-home birth of Jindal's third child last year. Jindal has always said the baby came before he and his wife could get to the hospital, and no other candidate has questioned his truthfulness. "I definitely think he put his child at risk. And I said it in a very nice way because, you know, you can't talk bad about Bobby Jindal. He's the great Messiah."
I mean, wow. I can't believe Georges went there. To me, this is hilarious because last year
I wrote a post about an unlikely
hypothetical future scenario involving dumb strategic voting and dirty media tricks in the 2007 Governor's race (paralleling the 2006 Mayoral race). Back then, I wrote:
During the 2007 campaign season, the popular Dead Oyster News Service asserts a false rumor that Rep. Bobby Jindal orchestrated his son's emergency live home birth as a media stunt to give him positive publicity. This generates a lot of discussion, and Jindal's forced to deny the rumor.
What's also funny is that Georges spends most of the interview claiming that Jindal is stealing all his policy ideas from Georges, but I feel like I could make the case that Georges is stealing stuff from YRHT for his campaign attacks. (Though, again, I must stress that I was obviously joking last year, whereas Georges is serious.)
Labels: Elections and Campaigns, Jindal
10 Comments:
Is George's that much of an idiot? My wife and I could have very well had that happen to us last April.
We live 45 minutes from the Lafayette hospital where Cherie had pre-registered. She wanted to have the baby naturally, so she also didn't want to get to the hospital too early and be confined to a room. I had to drive in from Beaumont when she called me, saying her labor was beginning.
When I got there, she didn't want to go to the hospital right away, worried about being stuck there for a 12-24 hr. labor. I convinced her that we should at least drive into Lafayette and then maybe check into the hospital, and if she wasn't too far along, go drive somewhere.
Well, about 45-50 minutes after arriving at the hospital, she had the baby. If we had waited a while at home, I would have been in Jindal's situation. Obvioulsy, he handled it better than I likely would have.
Jindal's judgement in that situation shouldn't be questioned. His wife might have been the one not wanting to get into the car so quickly. Rather, he showed calmness in the clutch time by helping deliver a healthy child.
I agree with you, Nick. This is beyond the pale.
Our second child was delivered within an hour of us arriving at the hospital. Many parents understand that after the first birth, subsequent "labors" can be drastically shorter than the first.
i thought it was orchestrated, but my wife had 14 hours of labor followed by a section, so i'm not one to judge. the real question is why do i know more about his child's birth and heart condition than jindal's plan for the future of my child? i
That part of the interview seemed to be leaving something out. She says that Georges called a reckless thing to do, but doesn't actually quote Georges saying that he did it. I don't really care; I hate both of them. But I do hate the whiny cry-baby hypocrite more than the malaka.
I know that I joked somewhere that if Georges threatened to get enough votes to force a runoff, we'd see a negative campaign , the ferocity of which has yet to be seen in American politics. It must have been in a comment somewhere, because I can't find it on my blog.
Soooo we already know that Georges is doing some surprising heavy campaigning for the black vote. Plus he's running a serious media blitz this week. Plus he's dropping this bomb.
But is Geroges, in fact, surging in the polls? Or is this just a classless way to end a classless campaign?
Jeffrey, thanks, I remember when I applied the Sadow quote to Georges -- it was while commenting on seeing Georges' yard signs in Metairie. I've noticed more in Jefferson since, everywhere from Elmwood through Old Metairie into Bucktown and the other Lakefront neighborhoods of Jefferson Parish. Of course, Jindal has more signs in all those neighborhoods. Then Sunday, I was shocked by the number of Georges' signs that I saw when I took Orleans Avenue from the bayou to the Quarter.
If I were naive enough to predict elections on yard signs, I'd say that anybody with decent support in white Jefferson (both blue collar and upper-middle class parts) and strong support in the sixth ward was definitely surging.
Of course, yard signs have limited predictive value under normal circumstances. In this case, a lot of the signs on Orleans Avenue were in front of, or nailed to, seemingly empty buildings. So those signs could just show the support of one or two landowners. On top of that, a co-worker in a mixed (predominantly black) neighborhood tells that Georges' campaign workers are "mistakenly" putting yards up in front of houses whose owners haven't requested them, including her own.
"But is Geroges, in fact, surging in the polls?"
Yes.
Past Boasso? I believe so.
Enough to force Jindal into a runoff? Unlikely.
I'd bet on a runoff. Probably Jindal/Georges, but three more days of attacks ads against Georges could help Boasso or Campbell.
I'd like to see the text of the interview where Georges said that Jindal staged the delivery. The crybaby will try to turn it into the new "attacks on my religious faith."
One thing that bugged me about Jindal's "home delivery" was the fact that while she was due any minute, they stayed at their Kenner house even though they wanted her to give birth at the Baton Rouge hospital where she delivered their other two children. Im sure they could have stayed someplace closer to their hospital of choice just in case.
All the while, there is a perfectly good hospital right down the street from where they live. At most a 2-3 minute drive if you happen to catch the red light at Vintage and Loyola. Unless you are going to tell me that her labor only lasted 2-3 minutes.
Georges is not the first person to question whether Jindal's birth was staged, I have heard several others bring up that possibility before. I really don't dwell about it because at the end of the day, regardless of whether it was staged or not, it has no effect on my final vote. And since there is really no proof either way, I would think there are much better arguments that Georges could be making against Jindal and it was probably unwise to bring up this one.
What shocked me was how many Georges signs I'm seeing as I head through Gentilly to N.O. East on the Chef. Employees, maybe?
