If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti

You Don’t Mess With The Jindal

by Hal_10000

Ta-Nehisi Coates was highly critical of the comparisons of bobby Jindal to Barack Obama.  McArdle makes a good point in defending the comparison:

Just to take an example that Ta-Nehisi uses, did Obama make some compromise on the Democratic Party’s no-restrictions-on-abortion-at-any-time-no-shut-up-I-CAN’T-HEAR-YOU-LALALALALA platform?  Because as far as I know, he’s still toeing the party line there.  And that’s just about as extreme, as far from the average American’s opinion on abortion, as Bobby Jindal’s.

Of course, to Democrats, there is no such thing an extreme pro-choice position.

Besides that, I’m willing to bet that Ta-Nehisi has never seen Jindal in person.  I have.  And while “swarthy” may play a small role in the Obama comparisons, it’s mostly along the lines of thinking that the Republican Party’s first non-white candidate would help heal the party’s image a bit.  The reason that they’re comparing Jindal to Obama is that, in person, he comes off a lot like Obama.  He’s extremely positive, he’s personally charming, and he’s kind of skinny and his ears stick out.  Like Obama, Jindal is something of an odd duck; he looks like the president of the Paramus, New Jersey High School Chess Club, and talks like a good old boy with a plantation somewhere back in the Bayou.  The combination is disconcerting for northern journalists, and a little bewitching.

But once you’re past that, well, the guy just has skills.  His message, like Obama’s, is one of hope and actual change; he tends to emphasize the work he’s done reforming Louisiana’s notoriously corrupt political culture.  And like Obama, he has the charisma to put it over.  Nearly all prominent politicians are extremely charismatic.  Being in a room with them is like being in a room with the sun; you can’t really look anywhere else.  But some have it more than others, and Jindal has a lot of it.

He’s also a really good political organizer, which is how a Republican carries Louisiana (to be sure, the Democratic governor’s monstrously incompetent performance during Hurricane Katrina helped quite a bit.) And on the other metrics by which Obama stands out--his academic chops, his meteoric rise--Jindal actually betters Obama.  The guy was accepted to both Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School, but decided to go for a political career, and accepted his Rhodes Scholarship instead.  At 25 he was appointed Lousiana’s Secretary of Health and Hospitals; at 28, he became the youngest-ever president of the University of Louisiana system. 

You can say many things about him--he’s written some nutty things about Protestants, and participated in an exorcism, which means he’s gonna have some ‘splaining to do if he runs for President.  But he is not George W. Bush, or John Kerry, or Al Gore, or any of the other range of uninspired sons of the gentry who have graced our political landscape recently.  He is phenomenally smart, and phenomenally talented, and phenomenally likeable.  And I’m sure that complacent Democrats dismissing him as a goober with a God complex suits his current plans just fine.

Jindal is also a supporter of intelligent design.

I’m going to reserve any opinions about Jindal until he actually (a) enters the national stage and (b) doesn’t go Palin on us.  To be honest, I’m not thinking too much about 2012—I’d just like to stumble through the rest of 2008 in one piece, thank you.  But, living in Texas, I’m hearing good things out of Louisiana.  As I said in my “Golden Drumsticks” post, there are several Republican governors who are very promising for the political future.  For all his religious quackery, Jindal has to be included in that list.

Comments

Posted by on 12/02/08 at 06:32 PM from

Hal -

You should have added Coates’ response to Megan, which, included this great section:

I don’t like calling Obama the next Lincoln, anymore than I like calling Jindal the next Obama. Jindal is the Republican Obama if you think that Obama is just a “fish out water,” dark-skinned politician. But if you’re like me, and you were thinking about politics, you’d think that a Republican Obama would have to beat the powerbrokers of his own party. He’d have to revolutionize campaign fund raising. You’d think he’d have to basically flip Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and Wisconsin.

That’s that so many aren’t getting about Obama. It’s not that what Obama did, as much as how he did it. He took on the Democratic establishment, and, basically, took it over. He came in and just took it over the Democratic Party.  Do you see Jindal doing this?

Not likely.

Posted by Hal_10000 on 12/02/08 at 07:52 PM from

Do you see Jindal doing this?

In a word?  Yes.  The GOP governors are the future.

Posted by on 12/02/08 at 10:24 PM from

The thing about Jindal is he has a knack for getting things done. Obama’s great at self-promotion, but has he ever left a mark anywhere he’s been?

Also, he’s considerably younger AND smarter than Obama.

Posted by on 12/02/08 at 11:17 PM from

Also, he’s considerably younger AND smarter than Obama.

I don’t know about the smart part.  Pushing intelligent design to be taught with science in high school is literally a “no brainer”.

Posted by on 12/02/08 at 11:51 PM from

Hal -

You missed my point completely.

The GOP establishment will line up behind Jindal, if you’re correct.  He won’t have to take on the likes of a Hilary Clinton in his party (Palin?).  He won’t have to buck the establishment of his own party like Obama was forced to do.

You, and many others, haven’t really looked or studied how improbably Obama’s win(s) were.  Looking in hindsight, it’s easy to see how good his campaign was.  However, when he announced, he was not even considered a serious candidate.  Read what was written about him at the time.  Read how many people wrote “He has no chance.” “He will never, ever be elected President.”

If people like Steve Schmidt are already saying “Jindal will be President”, it’s kind of hard to compare him to Obama since no one was saying “Obama will be President” before he started running.

Posted by on 12/03/08 at 12:09 AM from

What the fuck are you talking about? After Obama gave his convention speech in 2004, everybody’s comment was “that guy’s going to be president one day.”

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