Bobby Jindal

Jindal’s Response to Obama Address Panned by Fellow Republicans

By Heidi Przybyla

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has been among the Republican Party’s brightest stars in a party searching for a strong competitor to Barack Obama in 2012. He may be shining a little less brightly today.

Jindal is catching criticism from fellow Republicans for his performance delivering the party’s response to Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress.

“A lot of Republicans I am speaking with were expecting this would be like Obama’s moment in 2004” when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention and gained immediate national fame, said David Johnson, a Republican strategist who advised Bob Dole in 1988. “He bombed out.”

Democrat or Republican, any public official competing with the pomp and theater of the president’s address to a joint session of Congress is at a disadvantage. Still, some analysts and bloggers cited a flat delivery.

Jindal “seemed more like a high school student giving a valedictory speech than a potential future leader of the party,” wrote Philip Klein of the “American Spectator.”

Said Brit Hume of Fox News: “The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal’s greatest oratorical moment.”

Some Republicans were less critical. Carl Forti, a former communications director at the National Republican Campaign Committee, said one speech will not ruin Jindal’s presidential chances. “People are watching him right after they watched Obama, and Obama may be better than Reagan,” said Forti. “I’m sure that affected people’s opinion.”

‘Difficult Position’

Terry Holt, a Republican strategist who served as President George W. Bush’s spokesman in 2004, said, “I am very cautious to take away too much from a single performance. My sense is it’s a difficult position to be in” following Obama.

In his address, Jindal called the president’s economic- stimulus plan “irresponsible.” It will inflate taxes and the federal deficit, he said in the nationally televised address establishing himself as a leading critic of the new administration’s economic policies.

“It’s no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children,” Jindal said in giving the official Republican response to Obama’s address.

“The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens,” Jindal said in arguing that the stimulus plan and other proposals by Obama to revive the nation’s economy rely too much on government spending and taxes.

Government Role

Jindal pressed his view that government should not be the answer to all problems.

“It comes down to an honest and fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government,” he said. “We oppose the national Democrats’ view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, to empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs.”

Jindal has been a leader of a handful of Republican governors who have criticized the $787 billion stimulus bill that Obama signed into law last week. He was the first governor to say he would turn down about $90 million in unemployment benefits for his state that he claims would lead to a business tax increase.

With that move, Jindal is seeking to burnish his credentials as a fiscal conservative, said John Feehery, a Republican political strategist. “It’s a political risk,” he said.

“The safest political course is to condemn the stimulus but take the money anyway. That’s the course most governors will take,” said Feehery.

Republican Plans

In his speech, Jindal said, “Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and not to put more money and power in the hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you -- the American people.”

He said Republicans have put forward plans to create jobs by lowering income-tax rates, cutting taxes for small businesses, strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers, and stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for homebuyers.

“These plans would cost less and create more jobs” than Obama’s proposals, he said.

Bipartisanship

Jindal tempered his criticism with a commitment to bipartisanship. “You are looking to your elected leaders in Washington for solutions,” he said. “Republicans are ready to work with the new president to provide those solutions.

“Where we agree, Republicans must be the president’s strongest partners. And where we disagree, Republicans have a responsibility to be candid and offer better ideas for a path forward,” he said.

The governor acknowledged that Republicans lost their way on the budget under former President George W. Bush.

“You elected Republicans to champion limited government, fiscal discipline and personal responsibility,” Jindal said. “Republicans lost your trust -- and rightly so.”

The son of Indian immigrants, Jindal has a personal story to rival Obama’s upbringing as the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. He became Louisiana’s first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction when he won election in 2007. He converted from Hinduism to Catholicism before graduating from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He then earned a master’s degree from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Jindal highlighted his background in his speech. “As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country,” Jindal said. “They instilled in me an immigrant’s wonder at the greatness of America.”

‘Right Optics’

In 1996, Jindal was appointed secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. He served in several government positions before winning election to the U.S. House in 2004. He was re-elected in 2006, the year before he became governor.

“He’s youthful, he sends the right optics with his Indian background, and he is newly elected, he’s fresh,” said Jim Nicholson, a former Republican National Committee chairman. He said Jindal resembles Obama “because of his youth and his ability to articulate; he’s even better because he’s a conservative.”

Still Johnson, the Republican strategist, said Jindal’s performance is likely to reignite the party’s interest in other Republicans who’ve been eying a 2012 run, including Governors Sarah Palin of Alaska and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota as well as other newcomers like South Dakota Senator John Thune, said Johnson.

“It lessens his (Jindal’s) chances of really looking seriously at 2012,” said Johnson. “The person who was probably helped the most is Mitt Romney,” the former Republican Massachusetts governor. “By Jindal really flubbing up last night Romney was helped by a lot of conservatives who thought he was too old.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Washington at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net

This was supposed to be the GOP Ace in the Hole? It's too bad the South won't let a good Republican like Mitt Romney get the nomination because he's not the right kind of Christian. Instead they go for gimmicks.

I don't pay attention to every governor in the United States so I can't be certain, but based on what I know about the governors in the United States he's the worst one - even worse than California's.

The state of Louisiana put forth a serious effort to recall him after just a year in office. Then there's the other stupid things he's done....

...like signed a bill forcing convicted sex offenders to be castrated.

...or supporting a Constitutional amendment banning flag burning. Why not repeal the First Amendment while you're at it?

Perhaps Jeb Bush will run in 2012

gs78 wrote:

Perhaps Jeb Bush will run in 2012

Better than Jindal. They ought to get Ron Paul and Mitt Romney to battle it out for the GOP nomination. Instead it'll probably be two morons like Jindal and Palin.

Run Jeb Run!


Jindal Sucks!

Neither Palin or Jindal have a chance of beating " Black Jesus" { Obama] in 2012

better chance of getting a blizzard in Trashy Park or in Paso Robles than those two have of winning in 20 12

And I ain't talking about the Blizzards they sell at Diary Queen either


I am talking a huge snowstorm

Which won't even happen happen in my town again or in Cat's ever