The
Washington Times endorses Gov. Jindal for Veep, saying he is "Conservative" and "Youthful" and "Diverse." Jindal is "an exciting breath of
fresh air", and the
"great people of Louisiana will understand" if John McCain selects him.
I don't know about that.
But the conservative groundswell touting Jindal for Veep is undeniable. Compare it to the relative silence among Gooper pundits over Gov. Charlie Crist's prospects. Crist is a very decent man who isn't coy about wanting the Veep job, and whose endorsement was actually helpful for McCain.
Political pundit
Sam Hanna says that a "McCain operative" told him that it's between Crist and Jindal:
[T]he attribute that most likely raises Jindal's stock in the McCain camp would concern Jindal's baggage, or lack thereof.
In laymen's terms, Jindal is clean, meaning there aren't any skeletons in his closet that we know about or suspect at this time.
That's more than we can say about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist Jr., who, according to one McCain operative, is the other candidate— besides Jindal— who McCain is seriously considering tapping as his running mate.
Unlike Jindal, Crist has baggage, including questions about his sexuality and allegations that he fathered a child out of wedlock. He denies both charges, of course.
Ouch. (Hadn't heard the "child out of wedlock" thing.) And there isn't much
"question" about Crist's sexuality in my mind. In a perfect world, I could care less whether our leaders were breeders or benders or morrisseys in their private moments.
It shouldn't bloody matter! But we have the religious moralists who get all hung up on the aesthetics of sexuality, and can't endure the thought of certain people of unapproved persuasions pleasuring themselves in unapproved ways. It's a horrifying thought, to them, and they think about it a lot. Thus, a gay Republican politician is forced to lie to these moralists, and stay in the closet, because if he or she were to come out, they'd be viewed as a debased, godless hurricane magnet... and could never win another election.
So we play the game, and these gay Republicans pretend to be straight, and they shamelessly court the homophobic elements of their party, and the fundagelicals pretend to be convinced, until it all blows up in a scandal and everyone acts surprised or horrified.
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The Gambit's
Clancy Dubos doesn't think Jindal will be named Veep, but he tries to imagine the upside in case he is wrong:
In some ways, McCain picking Jindal would be reminiscent of George H. W. Bush picking Dan Quayle as his running mate in 1988.
[Insert long maniacal laugh here. Man, now that's freakin' funny.]
Jindal reminds me of Quayle in several ways, in fact. He would provide a generational counterweight to McCain's 71 years. (McCain turns 72 on Aug. 29; Jindal turns 38 in two weeks.) Also like Quayle, Jindal will have enormous appeal to younger voters and to the party's hard-core right wing.
Actually, Jindal turns
37 in two weeks, not 38. And, actually, Quayle never had "enormous appeal to younger voters". Never, ever. But I still love the Quayle comparison, Clancy. Make it work!
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*Labels: Elections and Campaigns, Jindal, McCain
17 Comments:
I wonder if the GOP folks are thinking that putting the LA Gov on the ticket will somehow shield them from criticism on the pathetic performance of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.
It's like these national GOP people have never actually seen Bobby Jindal. He's just flat out boring, and despite being 36 years old, offers no "fresh" ideas or even a young perspective on the future of the country. He's like an 80 year old man in a 36 year old body.
some jindal vp analysis i recently came across... link
OT: McCain is in Kenner (rally, 6/3) and then Baton Rouge (town hall, 6/4) later this week if anybody wants to check him out.
Of course, McCain operatives would never lie to a guy from a paper in Ouachita, wherever the hell that is...
This is my response to the Washington Post (just in case they have some sort of moderation feature that prevents people critical of them from posting)
"The Washington Times, with this endorsement, has shown the same lack of journalistic integrity that the Times Picayune of New Orleans showed in their endorsement of Jindal for Governor.
What the Washington Times does not understand is that Jindal's ethics reform is hardly sweeping, far from comprehensive, and is full of more holes than the justification to go into Iraq.
When a Republican Legislator put forward ethics legislation during the special session that demanded more transparency on Jindal's administration, Jindal balked. The explanation from Jimmy Faircloth (Jindal's executive council with ties to the Abramoff scandal)? Jindal needed to be able to meet with perspective Louisiana businesses behind closed doors!
Part of Jindal's ethics reform legislation was a provision that made it harder to convict people of ethics violations. So who cares if some legislation had stricter wording? If it becomes harder to convict someone of an ethical violation, the increase in standards means nothing!
If the Washington Post is impressed by this, I have a nice shiney penny that they might like to stare at for a few hours as well.
Jindal collected over $130K worth of campaign contributions from one source in the form of "bundling". How did he reward that person? He awarded his company the first government grant handed out in his administration. It was worth $14 million. Over 100x return on an investment.... not bad. Of course, this just proves that Jindal placed a huge "for sale" sign on Louisiana. This impresses the Washington Times?
Jindal claimed that he wanted to ban people in government from getting free tickets to events. He claimed that such activities are unethical and that his administration would set the example on ethics. That is until his cheif of staff got free tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. Jindal's response? He said that they would follow the law! (Thats right, the law that Jindal feels is unethical). So much for bringing ethics reform to Louisiana.
There are many different examples of how Jindal has proven himself to be a hypocrite. Many of which can be found with the slightest of effort. Jindal's gold standard he set for Louisiana was really a double standard. One for him and one for everyone else. And when it comes to the media getting access? Well, with the cast of characters surrounding Jindal, the only way to get access is to kiss the golden ring (and the hindquarters) of the governor. Speak ill of him and you lose access.
Jindal is an extremist, right wing, 100% anti-abortions with 0 exceptions conservative who may work to attract the religious right wing that might balk at voting for McCain. That is the bottom line and that is the only reason McCain would pick him. "
Here's how depressed I am lately. I read that Quayle's-enormous-appeal-to-younger-voters line from Clancy and just bowed my head a defeated man resigned to the fact that our venerated local punditocracy is free to create whatever stupid unreality it wishes in perpetuity.
God bless you for finding the fortitude to laugh maniacally at it today. I'm sure I'll be able to again. But sometimes I get really really discouraged.
Oddly enough, the out-of-wedlock rumors might hurt Crist more than the gay rumors, but the main thing that hurts him is the fact McCain doesn't need help to beat Obama in Florida. If it gets close, you won't hear Jeremiah Wright in Fla. radio ads, you'll hear Donna Brazile. In Michigan also, if that state's in play -- are there any veep-worthy Repubs in Mi.? But as it stands now, they need Crist for Fla. and I don't think the Greek vote enters into their calculations.
I think the Repubs will go the opposite way from the Dems. If the Dems pick somebody who helps in a key state (Strickland?) the Repubs will go with somebody that they think has (Romney?), or could have (Jindal??), national appeal. If the Dems go with somebody for national reasons, expect to see the Repubs pick somebody like Pawlenty.
Back to my first point, I do think the Republicans are going to try run against Donna Brazile, in part because she's ticked off so many Clinton supporters. We'll all know that main reasons will be racist or racist/sexist, but what will the response be?
I thought Quayle was supposed to help with the gender gap because he had "movie star" or "matinee idol" looks or something. Think Clancy will try to make that work?
"the out-of-wedlock rumors might hurt Crist more than the gay rumors"
I don't think so.
"If it gets close, you won't hear Jeremiah Wright in Fla. radio ads, you'll hear Donna Brazile."
I really, really don't think so. Most Clinton supporters don't know who the hell Brazile is. But almost all of them know about Wright.
If they go after Brazile, the response should be nothing, because it would be perceived as such an incredibly strange move that the press would have a field day with it. Why are they going after Brazile? What did she do... etc.? This is 2008, not 2000...etc.
"I think the Repubs will go the opposite way from the Dems."
Now this is an idea with which I can get on board. I could definitely see that happening, but I don't think that it will be on purpose. The only "national" person I could see for Obama at this point is Hillary, and I don't think that's likely (though it's certainly more possible than it was a couple months ago). It's very difficult to determine when a Veep decision is made, but I don't think either campaign is going to base their decision on what the other team does.
I haven't had the chance to listen to this , so I don't know if there's anything there that could turn up on an anti-Obama ad. But if you read some pro-Clinton blogs, some people that are trying to restrain their anger at Obama aren't holding back in expressing their anger at Brazile. Rightly or wrongly, they think she has too much influence for an obvious partisan and blame her for scuttling any efforts to seat Fla. or Mi. delegates. I figure it's a good bet that the Repubs have noticed and are working on ads featuring Brazile combined with emails that can play to angry Clinton supporters, angry Fla./Mi. voters and play a race card. I'm not endorsing it, but I do think it's one reason why McCain doesn't need Crist to win Fla.
I think the gay rumors would sink Crist in the primaries if he ever thought about running for president, I don't think the Repubs are worried about the Dems trying to use those rumors against him -- they might even welcome it.
I think you're wildly overestimating how representative and influential the pro-Clinton blogosphere is among run-of-the-mill Clinton voters.
The (dare I say) "typical" Clinton voter has no clue who Brazile is. None whatsoever. Even if you explained her role in the whole mess, they wouldn't care very much. So, some sort of triple-bank-shot race card play on Brazile strikes me as an utterly bizarre strategy. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it just doesn't make any sense to me.
Just because Big Tent Democrat (or whomever) is incredibly worried about something, doesn't mean real voters are.
The Dems wouldn't need to touch the Crist "rumors" at all. (Trust me, it's a lead pipe cinch that Crist is gay, not that there's anything wrong with that).
That's the best part. The rumors (once they poke out into the mainstream-- which they will) do all the work on their own, because the hard right fundagelicals will have a big hissy fit, and will threaten to stay home or vote third party, and it just snowballs from there. The Dems would just need to leave it alone.
And by the way, just for the record, I don't believe for a second that McCain has narrowed it down to Crist and Jindal.
The GOP VP pool is fried for a lot of reasons...
- Gov. of CA isn't eligble
- former Gov. of FL is named Bush
- George Allen screwed the pooch in VA
- the Ohio GOP imploded last cycle
- NC's Elizabeth Dole is 71
Go down the list of the most populous US states and the states where you would logically pick a GOP VP all either have Democratic Govs or problematic GOP Govs. Gov. Matt Blunt of MO would be a candidate but he's dirty. You have to go all the way down to Gov. Pawlenty of MN, the 21st most populous state, to get a natural compliment to McCain (young, swing state). That's who McCain will probably pick.
Crist would be the natural choice but if he isn't viable politically, the next best choice is Pawlenty. Maybe Tommy Thompson is a decent option. The GOP VP pool is shallow and filled with three-eyed radioactive fish and Austrians. Happy fishin'!
I certainly won't "understand" if Jindal abadons his state at a critical time in its history to run a failure campaign for VP.
Also, how can one person be "diverse"?
I still don't think Crist would be the obvious choice, even if he didn't have the baggage. He has no national stature and they don't need him for Florida.
He's how I'd do the Florida commercial: Voice over saying, "The Democrats didn't care about your vote in January..." with clips of rules committee member Ralph Dawson a proposing 100% delegate penalty and Donna Brazile saying that she seconds Dawson's motion. Since Dawson's also black, they'd have to throw in a clip of the white guy (didn't see his name, David MacDonald maybe) at the hearing who basically said he didn't give a F*** that the bill moving the primary date was the same bill that provided for paper ballots and it didn't matter no Fla. Dem could vote against that. Yeah, it would be an obvious attempt to appeal to racism, but at the rules committee hearing, two of the three hardest-liners were black. Or they might skip clips from the rules committee hearing and just show Donna Brazile taking a hard line on CNN, but I'd run a commercial along those lines if I were Repub strategist and Fla. looked close. If the Repubs ran such a commercial in Fla, they'd love a national discussion about whether it was race-baiting. The Donna Brazile/Fairy tale clips would come out so fast it would make your head spin.
John Edwards and Jim Webb would both be candidates other than Clinton with national appeal, but I'm not sure that either would be the best choice. It's off subject, but why doesn't anybody ever comment on how young looking Webb is? He's obviously not the pretty boy type, but it's hard to believe he's 62.
When I say that I'd run such a commercial if I were a Republican strategist, I'm assuming I'd be totally devoid of anything resembling a moral compass if I were a Republican strategist.
I don't believe McCain's narrowed the field to Jindal and Crist either. At most, he got their permission to investigate their pasts.
If it's between Crist and Jindal, I think it's Jindal for sure. I'm from Florida and know that McCain will win it handily against Obama anyway, and there's little else that Crist could offer in any other regard. I cannot think of ways that Jindal would be considered a liability by McCain voters, and all the flap over Hagee/New Orleans would be symbolically defused for Republican voters who took offense. Meanwhile, the memory of Hagee in relation to McCain would provide comfort to the lunatics who thought he had a good point. Gee, it's all so depressing to think about...
That would be the selfsame Sam Hanna who implied that anyone who utters Mr. Jindal's given name of Piyush has thereby revealed him/herself to be a big, fat, horrible, evil racist.
Piyush! ;-P
Plus, he picked up that key endorsement from the Moonies' media mouthpiece. Can we assume, then, that an actual Moonie isn't going to get the nod?
