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Bobby Jindal, would-be bayou battler, enters crowded Republican field for 2016

Bobby Jindal, would-be bayou battler, enters crowded Republican field for 2016

Although South Africans have been consumed by a whole range of domestic and international snarls, over in the American political landscape, the Republican presidential contender field grows ever more crowded, most recently with the announcement by South Asian-American Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. J. BROOKS SPECTOR takes a first look.

There was a time, not so long ago that the contest for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination was a disciplined, orderly, even sedate affair where party greybeards gently chivvied the party towards its inevitable candidate – usually in stark contrast to their opposition. Back in the 1930s, Will Rogers, the ‘Cowboy Philosopher’, could regale his audiences with the quip that he didn’t belong to an organised political party because he was a Democrat.

Well, no longer it seems. In fact, it is quite the reverse this time around. Among Democrats, there will be some fuss and fidgeting, but Hillary Clinton’s eventual ride to the nomination seems about as much of a political sure thing as there can be. But over in the Republican camp, the candidates just keep popping up like mushrooms in a pine forest after a good rain. Some are bigger than others, but they are all over the place now.

At least until New Jersey Governor Chris Christie makes his final determination (with a formal announcement virtually promised soon), the newest recruit to the Republican circus has become incumbent Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Louisiana is a state with a particularly baroque political tradition. Outsized (sometimes even outlandish) politicians like Huey Long have long occupied the Louisiana political space. The state’s tax revenues are significantly in thrall to oil and gas production.

The political texture of the place ranges from the largely rural Cajun lifestyle (including their unique French dialect, a remnant of the state having been first settled by French colonialists and its population augmented by French settlers expelled from Nova Scotia when the British conquered it from the French early in the 18th century); to the “laissez les bon temps rouler”/anything goes lifestyle of New Orleans (and most especially at Mardi Gras time); and then on to good-ole boy Southern culture up-country. The latter has more in common with the rest of the South than with life in ‘The Big Easy’, New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Earlier this week, on Wednesday, Jindal took the plunge into declared candidate status, taking on the persona of wonk-dom, or as he has called it, with himself as an experienced doer, not a talker. In recent years, governors and former governors would seem to have had a natural advantage on that score as they actually manage the government of a state and can – if they are lucky – can point to specific policies, projects and programmes that are theirs. But, even here the circle of announced candidates (and would-be ones) is getting a tad crowded, what with Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee already in there, and Chris Christie and John Kasich on the cusp of joining in as well.

Watch: Boby Jindal announces his run for President

Jindal, the Oxford-educated son of Indian immigrants, is the first South Asian-American politician to make it into the national limelight, something that clearly helps him stand apart from every other candidate and would-be candidate. He clearly has some serious policy management chops, getting his first major job at the age of 24. In his career he had previously been responsible for his state’s health and educational spheres in the administration of earlier governors, in addition to having served as a congressman.

However, in recent months, his decisions have generated significant negative feeling towards him by many Louisiana citizens, especially after falling oil revenues and tax cuts have led to a severe budget shortfall. As Brad Whitesides, a veteran North Louisiana political strategist said, “Many in Louisiana feel that Bobby Jindal abandoned them. At some point, [hard-core national anti-tax activist] Grover Norquist became more important to him than they were, and they knew it.” Moreover, with his rush to the right and especially towards an embrace of the views of social conservative evangelicals, including some hard lines on gay rights and Islamic fundamentalism, Jindal is going to be bumping into other candidates like Senator Ted Cruz and former Governor Mike Huckabee in seeking the support of this voter segment.

His growing decline in popularity in Louisiana and his place in national public opinion polls down near the bottom of the list registering around 1% of the choice of potential voters surveyed, is a long way away from where he found himself six years ago. Now his supporters are becoming concerned he may fall below the cut-off for the first Fox News TV debate on 7 August, whose organisers have said will only include the top 10 candidates, based on an average of several widely recognised public opinion polls.

Back in early 2009, and especially given the astounding success of Barack Obama in the election, Jindal was seen as the Republican Party’s next rising star, a blazing talent on track to be a serious presidential contender. But then disaster struck. As Politico described the mayhem, “Then he stepped in front of a camera to give the party’s official response to Obama’s first State of the Union; people who thought they were watching a coming-out party instead bore witness to a political train wreck — a tin-eared speech immediately derided as ‘childish’ and ‘a disaster for the party’.”

Politico went on to explain the Jindal conundrum, saying, “Jindal now enters a far more competitive and crowded presidential field, not as a wunderkind but as an asterisk who barely registers in national polls. He is running as a reform-minded social conservative armed with detailed policy proposals — and betting that his wonky approach will enable him to break through — but many question whether it’s too late to gain a foothold in the 2016 race.

“Bobby Jindal is a young man with an enormous record of accomplishment. He was a member of Congress, a senior person at HHS, and he’s a two-term governor. If he really wants it, his political future is still ahead of him,” said Steve Schmidt, a former senior adviser to John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “But timing is an underappreciated virtue in American politics. It’s difficult to see a scenario in which Bobby Jindal becomes the nominee in the 2016 cycle. He’s running from the back of the pack; he’s getting in comparatively late. But he is one of the most intelligent people in the race, and he could very well wind up on someone’s VP shortlist, in a Cabinet post or in a position to run again in the future.’

Still, Jindal could conceivably become a standout in his party’s presidential nomination debates – if he is allowed into the fray of the candidate debates. Should he be on the stage with others, it is possible he could score, if for no other reason than that he will be one of the few potential candidates who can really do the dance on the gory details of public policy, a skill he has honed through two decades of public life as an uber-wonk.

And so, if readers wish to take a long odds bet, pencil Jindal’s name in as his party’s vice presidential candidate – unless the presidential nominee becomes someone who is already a hyphenated American, say someone like Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Two minority candidates on the GOP ticket would be a tough act to accept for so many in the party’s hard-core base – so far at least. Still, with the nation’s demographics shifting as they are, one shouldn’t count Jindal out for a 2020 race – this time around as the party’s presidential nominee. DM

Photo: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal addresses the American Conservative Union’s 42nd Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, USA, 26 February 2015. EPA/MIKE THEILER

Read more:

  • Bobby Jindal enters the 2016 race for the White House at the BBC

  • Louisiana long-shot at Politico

  • Jindal announces 2016 White House bid online at Politico

  • Bobby Jindal Enters Presidential Race, Saying ‘It Is Time for a Doer’ at the New York Times

  • Bobby Jindal Continues to Struggle With State of the Union Responses at National Journal

  • Jindal Delivers Republican Response at the New York Times

  • How Bobby Jindal lost his way at the Washington Post

  • Bobby Jindal announces entry into 2016 presidential race at the Washington Post

  • Bobby Jindal’s unpleasant record, a column by Dana Milbank at the Washington Post

  • The miseducation of Bobby Jindal, an editorial at the Washington Post

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