William Ruger in the Anchorage Daily News thinks so:
Despite the apparent closeness of this presidential contest, one does not have to be either a rocket scientist or a political scientist to realize that McCain faces long odds. Intuition, academic forecasts, and even political futures markets all suggest that the election is Obama’s to lose. And this tells us something important about the vice-presidential candidate McCain should select. His steep challenge dictates a very unorthodox pick.
McCain needs to create buzz for his campaign and give voters a reason not to toss the Republicans out of the White House. He should avoid the dubious conventional wisdom of picking someone with electoral votes in mind. McCain needs a bold, unconventional pick like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Selecting Jindal certainly has advantages. He would add much-needed youth, diversity and vigor to the McCain camp. His selection would also go a long way toward exciting the conservative base that has long been wary of McCain. And it would help the Republican nominee’s own attempt to be seen as an agent of change by picking a new face, and an Indian-American at that.
However, it is Palin who could best ruin the predictions of the pundits, traders and forecasters.
Palin, the 44-year-old mother of five and popular governor of Alaska, would add a lot to a Republican ticket that will face an uphill battle no matter who is picked. First, the attractive young governor, like Jindal, would provide much-needed energy and youth to a ticket whose main candidate is frequently on the receiving end of “he’s so old” jokes. McCain should remember that this did not work out too well for Bob Dole, another senior war hero.
Ruger goes on to note that Palin would help Hillary voters to cast a McCain vote, that she’s the outsider’s outsider as far as DC politics goes, that she’ll help on both energy and environmental issues (being as she’s the governor of a very wilderness yet very oil State) and, finally (and perhaps most importantly) that she’s a Reagan conservative who could very well rally a conservative intensity for McCain that he can only dream of at this point. Ruger does also throw a semi-pitch in for Jindal, but the case he lays out for Palin is strong.
As for me, either Palin or Jindal would be excellent and automatically far superior to anyone Obama could pick.
Tags: Bobby Jindal, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Veepstakes
August 3rd, 2008
Couldn’t agree more:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Sunday that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “would be far and away the best candidate” to appear on the Republican presidential ticket with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
Gingrich, who appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” heaped praise upon the former congressman, saying that he is a “spectacular” governor and predicted that Jindal would be a presidential candidate in the future.
However, Jindal, who also was a guest on the show, said that he already holds the job he wants.
“I’m certainly supporting Sen. McCain, will do whatever I can to help him get elected, but I’m focused on being governor of Louisiana,” Jindal stated.
Asked whether it could be a problem that the governor, who is 37, might be perceived as not ready to lead the country in case he would have to replace McCain, Gingrich said the case can be made that Jindal’s “experience in the executive branch and in the legislative branch is greater than” that of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
“It strikes me that it’s going to be very hard for Obama’s campaign to explain that Jindal, as a governor, who has served as an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, has served as a congressional staffer, has served as a congressman, is not qualified but Sen. Obama is qualified,” Gingrich said.
Aside from being a brilliant man, an excellent legislator, a superb governor and an all around good egg, Jindal as VP would entirely show up the lack of depth in Obama - the complete phoniness of his quest for the Presidency, and the arrogant presumption that he, Obama, is better fitting than McCain to hold the most powerful office in the world. Gingrich went on to note that running merely against Obama’s inexperience won’t work (though I’m not 100% sold that it won’t), but the fact does remain that Obama’s lack of experience coupled with his wrongheaded and destructive policy proposals can be the right mix to beat him in November - and in this the rather wonkish Jindal would also be a great asset to the more rough-and-ready McCain. Jindal can clearly lay out precisely why Obama’s policy proposals are not just mistaken, but already known to all well informed people to be massive failures-in-waiting.
McCain/Jindal ‘08 - that is my preferred ticket.
Tags: Bobby Jindal, John McCain, Louisiana, Veepstakes
June 16th, 2008
What you get when conservatism is at the helm:
In a major legislative success for Gov. Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana Senate voted 25 to 12 on Wednesday for a bill that would let up to 1,500 low- to middle-income students in New Orleans attend private schools at taxpayer expense.
Already approved by the House, the bill, a $10 million school voucher measure, needs one more routine vote in that body on the Senate language changes before it goes to Mr. Jindal, a Republican, for signing.
Backers say the bill will help some New Orleans children escape a struggling school system that has for years been known for corruption, bad management and poor student performance.
The public school systems don’t work - and in fact, for the most part, they never can work…given the nature of humanity, trying to figure out what is best for millions of kids from a huge variety of backgrounds is impossible. The best we can do is allow parents the flexibility to choose what education they think best for their own children - and school choice is the sharp edge of this new education paradigm which will return to families their power to educate their children.
More and more I come to the conclusion that the strongest indicator of impending failure is how big the proposal is - the more anyone tries to do, the more likely they’ll get it wrong. Keep it small; keep the decision making down on the lowest level possible - do that, and even if there is a monumental screw up, then it will at least affect a smaller number of people. Right now, a few school board dimwits can wreck things for hundreds of thousands of kids at a stroke - a private school can, at most, mess up the lives of a few hundred kids. Additionally, when you put the choice down at the lower level, you’re more likely to get a decision driven by genuine knowledge of what is needed - here in Las Vegas, we have a school board which proposes to figure out what a kid in Summerlin (the rich area) and a kid off Fremont Street (the poor area) needs. It can’t be done. The parents of the Summerlin and Fremont kids, however, likely do know what is needed - as would someone running a private school in each area.
And, now, as an aside - this is yet another major accomplishment which pretty much outweighs all of what Obama has done in his lifetime…given this, I’ll once again offer my prayer that John McCain will look towards Louisiana for a Vice President.
Tags: Bobby Jindal, Education, Louisiana, school choice, Veepstakes
June 13th, 2008
Interesting:
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on Friday is scheduled to meet with two Republican governors who have been prominently mentioned as potential running mates, according to Republicans familiar with McCain’s plan.
The two governors, Charlie Crist, of Florida, and Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, have both accepted invitations to meet with McCain at his home in Arizona, according to Republican familiars with the decision. One Republican said that Mitt Romney, a former rival of McCain for the presidential nomination wasalso expected to visit him this weekend. Romney’s advisers declined to comment.
McCain, after a week of campaigning, is heading home on Friday for three days without a public schedule. His campaign declined to comment on the meetings.
“We don’t talk about the V.P. selection process,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser.
Still, the names of McCain’s visitors and the timing — coming three weeks after the Arizona senator told reporters that he had a list of 20 potential running mates — strongly suggested that he was moving into an intensified phase in his search for a vice presidential candidate.
Jindal is the best pick, in my view - his only drawback being the brief time he’s been governor of Louisiana, but given that the Democrats’ guy hasn’t got the requisite experience to be dog catcher, that might not be a high hurdle to overcome. Jindal would bring youth (I believe he’s 36 years old), ardent Catholicism, ethnic diversity (he’s the son of Indian immigrants), policy expertise (he’s a bit of a wonk on that) and a vision of the GOP future. Romney and Crist would also be fine picks, but Jindal is the man of the moment, I believe.
UPDATE: A sample of Jindal:
When I first learned you had invited me to come to the Press Club, I was excited at the prospect of being your biggest newsmaker this week.
Then, on Monday morning, I turned on the TV and saw Reverend Wright standing right here in this pulpit. I mean podium.
I’m a little disappointed the cable channels aren’t broadcasting live again this morning. Where are satellite trucks?
I have to tell you, I will never be as colorful or interesting as Reverend Wright. So if that’s what you came to see, I suggest you get another cup of coffee. In fact, I am less interesting and less colorful than any Louisiana governor you have ever met. I told my staff the very first day I was sworn in that was one of my goals.
Our state has had its share of colorful, quotable, entertaining politicians. In fact, in many elections it seemed that was the only criteria to get elected in Louisiana. You may remember our former Governor Edwin Edwards’ slogan….. “Laissez les bon temps Roulez.” Let the good times roll.
It made for great copy and funny sound bites.
But the problem was that the good times did NOT roll. At least not for everyone. The good times rolled for the people in power in our government, but they did not roll for most people in our state. “Who you know” became far more important than “what you know.”
Last year, during the campaign, I put the challenge to our citizens to roll all of that back. I went to every city, every parish, every wide spot in the road and said “we CAN change, we MUST change, we WILL change.”
And our people responded. They gave us an historic victory on the first ballot…
…with our resources…from agriculture to transportation to petroleum…we can be at the center of innovation and commerce in this country again.
If you have a solution to the impending problems with the world’s food supply? Come to Louisiana, where the growing cycle lasts most of the year.
If you have a way to stretch our domestic oil supply and decrease our dependence on foreign oil? Come to Louisiana, where one third of the nation’s oil and gas comes in off our coasts.
If you have a product to export to the nation and the world, come to Louisiana, where we have five of America’s largest ports, and three of the nation’s major railroads.
Louisiana has always been perfectly situated to be the capital of American innovation…if only Government would get out of the way.
And we are doing just that, right before your eyes.
Our first task was ethics – we now have a predictable playing field for outside investors. You won’t get beat by a rigged game. After that, we moved to dramatically alter our tax code.
In a second special session in March, we ELIMINATED anti-business taxes on business utilities, new equipment and debt.
We sped up the elimination of the tax on business investment – meaning Louisiana is no longer one of only THREE states in the country that taxes manufacturing machinery and equipment.
We accelerated the elimination of the tax on capital investment – meaning Louisiana is no longer one of the ONLY states in the country that taxes business debt.
We completely eliminated the “penny” tax on business utilities.
And – we re-authorized Louisiana’s New Market Tax Credits to encourage further investment in our state, and especially those areas that are still working to rebuild from the storms of 2005.
We also did something government too rarely does…we used a one-time surplus to make one-time expenditures that strengthen our economy. Thanks to the price of oil and the pace of reconstruction, our state budget is actually doing pretty well.
More sober governors might have created big new programs…setting a higher baseline for spending that might not be sustainable once revenues take a dip.
We did just the opposite.
We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development… on priorities like roads, bridges, ports, and coastal restoration.
For a conservative, it doesn’t get any better than this…
Tags: Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist, Mitt Romney, Veepstakes
May 21st, 2008
Bobby Jindal leading the way in Louisiana:
Jindal ‘bats a thousand’ at session
BATON ROUGE — The state Legislature on Friday wrapped up its second special session during the 2-month-old administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal by completing a full sweep of the governor’s proposed package of business tax cuts and $1.1 billion in surplus spending priorities.
Jindal and his legislative allies won all the initiatives they set out to accomplish during the six-day session, including a controversial bill to grant a partial tax deduction for private school tuition.
Flanked by many members of his supporting team of lawmakers at an evening news conference, the governor framed the results as a positive statement on Louisiana’s national image.
“This group should be proud of batting a thousand,” Jindal said. “The country’s watching us … we know they’ll like what they see.”
The session followed a February lawmaking period in which the governor passed a slate of new ethics laws. A regular spring session of the Legislature will begin March 31.
Lawmakers passed bills to eliminate a 1 percent sales tax that businesses pay on utilities, an estimated annual savings to Louisiana companies — as well as a loss of state revenue — of $69 million. They also passed an expedited phaseout of taxes on corporate debt and on manufacturing machinery and equipment. Those taxes were widely seen as burdens on companies that expand their operations, therefore placing Louisiana at a competitive disadvantage with other states.
What have you Democrats got as your “breath of fresh air”? Barack Obama - an ultra-liberal product of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine…you can keep him; we GOPers have genuine change we can believe in. Bobby Jindal is just starting out, and he’s already done more real things for people than Barack Obama could ever dream of doing - it is in this youthful, idealistic conservatism where we’ll finally win all down the line, crushing the life out of that leftwing thought which has been desrtoying our nation for decades.
You can’t win, lefties - your worldview is built on lies and thus it never, ever works when put into practice. Sure, you’ll be able to win an election or two, from time to time, but not by running on what you are; only by hiding it…but we’re out there, telling people what we believe, and then putting it into place…and it works, every time we try.
Tags: Bobby Jindal, Conservatism, government reform, Louisiana
March 15th, 2008
A really quite good AP article on the subject:
…REPUBLICANS
Given McCain’s age — at 72 on Inauguration Day, he would be the oldest first-term president — there could be more focus than usual on his choice for vice president.
McCain batted away questions Friday about what he’ll be looking for, saying it would be inappropriate to go there with Huckabee still in the race.
Even so, he offered some clues to his thinking. A regional strategy — picking a Southerner, for example, to help carry states in the South — doesn’t work like it did in the past, he said.
McCain even laid out a job description of sorts: “The fundamental principle behind any selection of a running mate would be whether that person is fully prepared to take over and shares your values, your principles, your philosophy and your priorities,” he said.
Under one theory, McCain should use his veep choice to shore up support among wary conservatives.
“That’s the high-profile, easy way” to get right with conservatives, said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. “If you said, ‘I can’t change because I’m too old to change and I’m too ornery and I don’t want to be nice to you but I’ll select as my running mate someone you really love,’ then they’ll all say ‘OK, we’ll put up with the ornery old guy.’”…
…DEMOCRATS
Still battling delegate for delegate, Clinton and Obama need to keep their focus right now on securing the nomination.
Others, though, have more time to ponder the ramifications of the two candidates teaming up — in either order.
Many see that as the unstoppable “dream unity ticket,” says Goldstein.
Republican Galen, however, thinks it would be more of a nightmare scenario.
A President Obama, he says, wouldn’t want Bill Clinton roaming around “reminding everybody of how he would have done it.”
A President Clinton, he says, wouldn’t want to be overshadowed by the star appeal of Obama.
If the Democratic candidates decide to look elsewhere for a running mate, one strategy is select someone who reinforces their own qualities.
Obama, for example, could pick a Washington outsider to supersize his change message, for example a governor like Arizona’s Janet Napolitano or Kansas’ Kathleen Sebelius…
Anything is possible, but I really don’t see Hillary subordinating herself to Obama, and I see no upside for Obama in becoming Hillary’s VP pick (being a Clinton VP did just a bang up job for Gore, right?) - given this, I do look for a relatively unknown person to wind up as the Democrat’s VP pick - with Napolitano and Sebelius being very good choices for Obama. As to who Hillary would pick - look for a non-entity who won’t be able to upstage her, nor compete with Bill for the second-banana spotlight. Perhaps some former Clinton cabinet member, or a really obscure governor.
As for McCain - I’m thinking youthfu, governor and rock-ribbed conservative. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) would be best, but he only took office this year…oln the other hand, if its Obama, no one would be able to complain about Jindal’s experience, which actually far outpaces Obama’s even without the governorship. Mike Rounds (R-SD) is another possible pick - youthful, good looking family, solid conservative credentials on spending, regulation and education.
What do you think?
Tags: Barack Obama, Bobby Jindal, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mike Rounds, Veepstakes
February 10th, 2008
