Naw, he’s not running for President.

No, not at all.

From The Times-Picayune:

A group of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s political supporters, including an uncle of the governor’s wife, Supriya Jindal, are forming a federal political action committee to support a presidential run by the 38-year-old Republican.

The governor is aware of the operations of Jindal For President Draft Council Inc., but is not directly involved, according to organizers Rama Mohanty, a Southern University professor, and Dan Kyle, a former legislative auditor and failed GOP candidate in several bids for office.

“They are supportive of what we are doing,” Mohanty said of the Jindal team.

But, as mentioned in the article, I think Jindal has his eye more on 2016 than 2012. The field is too crowded in 2012 and he’s simply too young. Best to let Romney, Palin and Huckabee fight it out and then position yourself as the conservative Obama once Obama is out of office.

Come on Bobby…you’re running, aren’t you?

From Times-Picayune:

Although a contract has yet to be signed, Jindal said he has reached an agreement with Regnery Publishing, which has published political tomes by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, actor Chuck Norris and political commentator Ann Coulter, among others.

The book is tentatively scheduled for release in 2010, the governor said.

Jindal said the book will be a mix of biographical material, “lessons I’ve learned throughout my life” and his thoughts on a range of policy issues.

“I just want to offer my ideas and my experiences to the conversation,” Jindal said.

But…he’s not writing it…

Much of the work on the book will be done by a co-author, Peter Schweizer, a Florida writer whose previous work includes nonfiction books about the Bush family and President Reagan, and a novel co-authored with former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Understandable since he has a day job, but come on…is it really that hard to write a book about yourself?

One note about the publisher he’s going with. Regnery is notorious for gaming sales numbers so they can claim their authors are New York Times bestsellers, when all they’re really doing is selling their books to companies they own that then sell the book at an extremely discounted price or donating the books to non-profits to give away with newsletter subscriptions.

So this ultimately may be a bad move on Jindal’s part because it aligns him with a far right wing organization. Still, if nobody else was going to give him a book deal, it may be better to have something than nothing.

First, the clip…

And now, the truth from Politico:

The spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, said the story Jindal told in his response to Obama actually took place some days later in Lee’s office — though still in Katrina’s chaotic aftermath — as Lee was “recounting” his frustrations with the bureaucracy to someone else on the telephone.

“It was days later,” Sellers said. “Sheriff Lee was on the phone and the governor came down to visit him. It wasn’t that they were standing right down there with the boats.”

She said she didn’t know who Lee, who died in 2007, was on the phone, about the incident with the boats when the governor described him as yelling into the phone.

UPDATE: I’d initially misunderstood Sellers to be saying Jindal and Lee didn’t meet while rescue efforts were still underway. In fact, she said, the conversation took place in the aftermath of the storm, but after the boat incident.

“Bobby and I walked into Harry Lee’s office – he’s yelling on the phone about a decision he’s already made,” Jindal chief of staff Timmy Teepell recalled. “He’s saying, ‘This is a decision I made, and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me.’”

As I said before, this was a dumb unforced error.

Moving on…

Another unforced error from that widely panned rebuttal.

First, the original story in his own words…

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go – when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, ‘Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.’ And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: ‘Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

The problems?

TPM details…

• First, Jindal’s story has Lee railing against the red-tape in the midst of the crisis. But Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, told CNN he didn’t find out about the license and registration issue until about seven days after the incident.
• According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis. But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs — which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not…
• When the storm made landfall on August 29, Jindal was on a foreign trip. His family was evacuated to his parents’ house in Baton Rouge, and when he returned, he went straight there to join them. In a September 1st CNN interview given from Baton Rouge, Jindal talked about taking an aerial tour of the disaster area, but didn’t mention anything about having been on the ground personally. We’ve reviewed Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops.
• And in 2008, Jindal told Human Events:
  

  There are thousands of these stories. I talked to a sheriff in an area where they had people with boats that were ready to go in the water and rescue people and they were turned away because they didn’t have proof of registration and insurance, they didn’t bring the right paperwork. The bureaucracy was just awful.

Basically, the story was powerful enough when told correctly. No need to put himself in the crisis itself to enhance it. In fact, the extra details made it seem more like an episode of Andy Griffith than anything else.

Moving on…

I wonder if we’ll start to see some backtracking about Jindal’s speech from the right-wing media after Limbaugh’s call to arms. Because if so, Rush has a lot more pull than I thought.

Brooks digs in…

Long story short, no more 2012 run for Bobby. And that’s probably a good thing for both him and the Republicans. Save him for 2016 when he might be ready, although I have serious doubts at this point that he’ll ever be the type of guy who could lead a nation.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) continued his sharp criticism of the stimulus signed into law last week, as the man some Republicans view as the potential savior of their party used his response to President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress last night to challenge the vision laid out in the recovery package.

Delivering the official GOP response to Obama from the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge, Jindal defended the virtues of small government that he said even his own party had abandoned in recent years.

“Instead of trusting us to make decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest,” he said of Democrats. “Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy. What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line and saddle future generations with debt.”

Speaking of Obama, Jindal said that “we appreciate his message of hope, but sometimes it seems like we look for hope in different places. Democratic leaders in Washington, they place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you, the American people.”

And Jindal rebuked the president for a remark made earlier in this month when Obama warned that without immediate action on the economy, “our nation will sink into a crisis that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse.”

“A few weeks ago, the president warned that our country is facing a crisis that he said we may not be able to reverse,” Jindal said. “Our troubles are real, to be sure. But don’t let anyone tell you that we cannot recover. Don’t let anyone tell you that America ’s best days are behind her.”

Tapped by congressional Republican leaders as a fresh face for the response, Jindal delivered remarks that differed little from the rhetoric of Republicans in Washington who have pledged to work with the new president but have pushed him to adopt more conservative policies.

Unfortunately for Jindal, his speech has not gone over well at all.

The reaction among the left side of the blogosphere was perhaps predictable. Nate Silver said that Jindal sounded like he was targeting his speech to a room full of fourth graders. Matthew Yglesias said he sounded like he was talking to nine year olds. John Cole thought that he was auditioning for the role of Mr. Rogers’ replacement. And, Crooks and Liars thought that he may have consumed to much Red Bull prior to the speech.

But it isn’t just the left side of the wonkosphere that’s panning Jindal’s response last night.

Lorie Byrd found Jindal disappointing. Ace called it “awful.” Allahpundit said that Jindal blew his star turn and provided an opening to other GOP Governor’s angling for party leadership. Robert Stacey McCain called it a “big wiffle-ball swing and a miss.” It was Matthew Gagnom over at The Next Right, though, who provided the most detailed critique of Jindal’s performance:

Bobby Jindal is one of the GOP’s “rising stars” – its hard to deny that. But he has already fallen into the trap that so many politicians in this party have fallen into over the last decade. He has become a black hole of ideas who came off as dedicated to little more than opposing the Democratic agenda out of some kind of Hatfield/McCoy type rivalry, and he did it by appealing to the lowest common denominators of both our society, and our culture.

Gone were the big ideas. Gone was the serious conversation about this country’s future. Gone was communicating like an adult.

Even the guys at Fox News couldn’t stomach Jindal’s delivery:

On the whole, I think the criticism of Jindal are fair and accurate. It was a weak speech, weakly delivered, against a background that couldn’t help but be compared unfavorably to the majestic background that President Obama was able to take advantage of for his speech.

More importantly, though, Jindal’s performance is emblematic of the absurdity of having an opposition party response to every Presidential address. As Brit Hume noted in the Fox clip above, there’s simply no way that any politician can follow the President of the United States and come off looking small and petty. Alex Massie, James Joyner, and Bruce McQuain all make similar points.

But while Jindal had the cards stacked against him from the beginning, he certainly didn’t help himself in any respect last night. It was a deer-in-the-headlights performance that will be remembered for some time to come.

Jindal’s only advantage is the simple fact that he’s young. He’s only 37 years old, ten years younger than Barack Obama. He’s barely halfway through his first term as Louisiana’s Governor. The smart thing for him to do is to stay on the sidelines in 2012, and continue doing his job. He had a bad night, but he’ll be around for some time to come.

Originally posted at Below The Beltway

The Louisana Governor’s star keeps on rising.

From WSJ:

Congressional Republican leaders have tapped Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to offer a counter-address from Baton Rouge following President Barack Obama’a first address to Congress on Feb. 24.

The move further fuels speculation that Jindal is a favorite among the Republican establishment as a potential presidential contender in 2012 or beyond. In statements, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky lauded Jindal.

“Gov. Jindal’s leadership during a time of recovery in Louisiana, his commitment to real government reform, and his protection of hardworking American families make him an excellent choice to offer Republican solutions for the challenges which lay ahead,” said McConnell.

He says he’s not running in 2012, but I can’t help but think that the GOP is positioning him as the anti-Palin just in case. After all, Obama was supposedly too young.

So…I’m still putting this in the 2012 Election category.

I think it’s a very smart move (like asking to not be vetted for VP this year), and so does Kevin Drum

I’d say this confirms that Jindal isn’t an idiot. Sure, it’s possible that Barack Obama is going to crash and burn and turn 2012 into a Republican year. But what are the odds? Far more likely is that Obama is a shoo-in for a second term, and whoever runs against him will suffer the same fate as George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, and John Kerry. The GOP will find someone to embark on this suicide run, but it will have to be someone both dumber and with a lot more jejune self-regard than Jindal. Palin 2012!

But will Palin actually consider running after being through the wringer this year?

Oh, you betcha…

This could be basic “No, no, I wouldn’t dream of it” type of talk, but if he does run for Governor in 2011 then it’ll be hard to fake that.

From Examiner.com:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says he’s not interested in a 2012 run for president and will seek re-election in 2011.

At a news conference Wednesday with Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s 2009 Republican candidate for governor, Jindal was asked if he was interested in being president.

Jindal’s reply: “No.”

Now, if he’s serious about not running he’s VERY smart. Not only because he realizes that putting a 42 year old up as the GOP nominee would be a stretch, but also that the GOP field in 2012 will be incredibly crowded with the same faces and names we saw this year, with possibly the exception of one new superstar from Alaska.

Couple that with the idea that the economy is bound to get better in the next 4 years and you have a less than hospitable environment for Republicans.

So yeah, I think it’s better for him to wait for 2016. And for that matter, it would be smart for Palin to wait for 2016 too. But there’s nothing to suggest that she’s a skilled political operator in the first place, so my guess is she’ll jump the gun and run in 4 years.

A Washington Post article marks somewhat of an unofficial launch to the Jindal buzz, although we’ve been talking about this since May on Donklephant.

In any event…the following sounds very familiar…

Jindal insists he is ignoring all the speculation. In Cedar Rapids, at a breakfast event devoted to addressing this beleaguered city’s efforts to rebound from its disastrous flood last summer, he avoided any reference to 2012, staying focused on explaining Louisiana’s methods for coping with hurricane floods in emergencies on his watch.

Meanwhile, others around the country were talking him up. No less an aspiring kingmaker than Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of McCain’s failed presidential bid, sees Jindal as the Republican Party’s destiny. “The question is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president, because he will be elected someday.” The anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist believes, too, that Jindal is a certainty to occupy the White House, and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has described him as “the next Ronald Reagan.”

Jindal is, above all else, a political meteor, sharing Obama’s precocious skills for reaching the firmament in a hurry. It was just four years ago, after losing a gubernatorial election, that he won election to Congress, and only this year that he became Louisiana’s governor, the first nonwhite to hold the office since Reconstruction. And now, 10 months into his first term, the talk of a presidential bid is getting louder among his boosters.

Still, I have my doubts that he’ll actually be running in 2012. Now, anything can happen in the next 3 years before candidates start running for real, but with the economy starting to hit bottom (hopefully) it seems like Obama will benefit from lowered expectations. That doesn’t mean he can’t make any gains, but if he manages to make sure things don’t get a lot worse it’ll probably be seen as a win for him.

So Jindal would do well to think about waiting another 4 years, especially since he’s so young. Because he’ll barely be 40 when he would actually start running, and I can’t imagine the Republican base abandoning their values that propelled McCain into the nomination.

We shall see…

Does this guy really want to be the sacrificial lamb in 2012? Because nobody’s going to blame Obama for this economic downturn (except hardcore Friedmanites), and if Obama creates 2.5 million jobs in the next few years, he’s got 2012 in the bag.

In any event, here’s more from CNN:

(CNN) — Bobby Jindal’s in Iowa today. Louisiana’s Governor will make a stop in Cedar Rapids to tour some of the damage from devastating floods earlier this year. He’ll also participate in a fundraiser with some of the victims from the flooding. Tonight Jindal heads to Des Moines, where he’s the keynote speaker at a fundraising dinner for the Iowa Family Policy Center’s “Celebrating the Family” banquet, a major Christian conservative event.

Jindal’s considered by many in the Republican party to be a rising star and his trip to Iowa, the state that kicks off the presidential primary season, is raising speculation that he might be interested in making a bid for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 2012. But Jindal says such talk is misplaced and that he has no plans to make a run for the White House.

Bobby, seriously, stay away from this fight. Let Romney and Huckabee duke it out in 2012, and then position yourself as the Republican savior 4 years later. Trust me on this.

If he’s truly thinking about running in 2012, I think that’s a mistake since he’ll literally be 41 years old at the time. Then again, that’s what they said about Obama a couple years ago, although Obama had more legislative experience when he ran than Jindal will have in 2012.

And actually, both Huckabee and Jindal are going, but I’m talking about Jindal because I mentioned Huck a few days ago.

Des Moines Register has more…

On Nov. 22, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will visit Cedar Rapids and West Des Moines to speak at several events. Jindal is known for having played a significant role in Louisiana’s recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Neither Huckabee nor Jindal has officially announced plans to seek the 2012 nomination, but Web sites such as Politico.com have speculated on their intentions. Some political observers say it’s just a matter of time before the two publicly acknowledge they are running for president.

“I think they’re just kind of feeling their way around, testing the waters and seeing how things go – to get acquainted with people they’ll have to get acquainted with three years from now,” said Jan van Lohuizen, a Republican consultant who handled polling for President Bush’s re-election campaign.

Others, however, say it is too soon to speculate about contenders for the GOP’s 2012 nomination for president.

“People are looking, probably, for more than there is,” said Bryan English, a spokesman for the Iowa Family Policy Center, which is sponsoring Jindal’s West Des Moines event.

By the way, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Jindal is starting to make the rounds on the media in this post election cycle and talking about where the GOP needs to go.

Long story short, he could definitely be a new, more bi-partisan force within the party and that’s really the only place they’ll be able to go if they want to push the Dems out of power.

The three things that Jindal cite are definitely what the GOP hung their hat on, but will they have a higher hurdle if Obama is successful with his decidedly liberal economic agenda?

We shall see…

That’s what he apparently claimed a couple weeks ago.

From the Post-Gazette via Politico:

“I think it’s quite unlikely that I would run for office again,” he said. “I gave this my best effort. My experience in politics is that the window opens rarely. It opened for me. I stepped through it, got on the stage and did my darnedest to win the nomination. John McCain was successful and I was not.”

Adding that he’d prefer to contribute outside electoral politics, Romney reiterated: “If I were a betting person, I’d say I’m not going to be running again.”

Maybe backing off of the 2012 race isn’t such a bad idea. After all, 2016 would probably be a better bet at this point given Obama’s massive win.

Still…if Romney waits 8 years he’ll be 69 and there will probably be another superstar in the GOP like Bobby Jindal who’ll be poised to lead them out of the wilderness. So maybe 2012 is Romney’s best bet.

We shall see…

Now that the election is over, it’s not too soon to contemplate Sarah Palin’s future in national politics.

Though she’s only been on the national stage for less than three months, I’ve seen enough to proffer a point of view.   I think the evidence is clear: Sarah Palin was a huge net drag on the ticket.  I’ll concede that she energized the conservative base, and was a firebrand on the stump, but she also drove away moderates and independents by the bushel.  Does anyone doubt that the race would have been tighter with Mitt Romney on the ticket?

Her appalling interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric revealed a total lack of preparedness for the commander in chief position, and effectively torpedoed McCain’s chances in the blink of an eye.

But the critical question is: did she torpedo her own political future at the national level? Or can she be a viable candidate in either 2012 or beyond.

The answer may lie in another question: did she stumble because she lacked the requisite experience at the national level, or was it because she simply doesn’t have the native intellect, temperament and gravitas to be a player.

I think it’s a little of both.  She was green, and her inexperienced showed — no doubt about it.  She made a bunch of rookie mistakes that are common to newcomers.

But she also had waaaay too many Dan Quayle moments, and those had nothing to do with her inexperience, and everything to do with her limited intellect and gravitas.

And it’s hard to acquire intellect and gravitas.  Sure, she can spend the next four years boning up on domestic policy, meeting with world leaders, inserting herself into the national dialogue, and so on.  But where does that leave the Republican Party:  with an intellectually insular, govern by the gut, it’s-my-way-or-the-highway governor with a missionaries zeal.  Sound familar?  I’m not sure Republicans want to go through that again.  I’m positive the country doesn’t want to head down that path again.

At the end of the day, she has the misfortune of closely resembling President Bush, and irrespective of what happens over the next four years, the party is likely to move away from the Bush/Palin model and towards a more intellectually curious, magnanimous, secular, policy-wonk type.  Maybe someone like Louisianna Governor Bobby Jindal.

If she runs in 2012, she can certainly make noise in the Republican primaries.  Iowa would be fertile ground for her, as would South Carolina.   But I just don’t see her as a legitimate contender, at least not the next time around.

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