Bobby Jindal enters race seeking mantle of 'outsider'

[mystery-ak]

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/246065-jindal-im-running-for-president-without-permission

June 24, 2015, 06:08 pm
Bobby Jindal enters race seeking mantle of 'outsider'

By Jonathan Easley

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal launched his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination outside New Orleans on Wednesday, presenting himself as a rebel willing to upend the GOP establishment.

“Today’s Republican Party in Washington has been beaten into submission and is increasingly afraid to speak the truth,” Jindal said. “I’m running for president without permission from headquarters in Washington, D.C. But rest assured, I’m tanned, rested and ready for this fight.”

The two-term governor took direct shots at some of his party colleagues who are also seeking the nomination in 2016, calling out former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by name.

“You’ve heard Jeb Bush say that we need to be willing to lose the primary in order to win the general election,” Jindal said. “We’re going to help him do that.”

“[Bush] is saying that we need to hide our conservative ideals, but the truth is, if we go down that road again, we will lose again,” he continued, an apparent allusion to the losing presidential campaigns of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012 and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, both of whom had been deemed electable by party insiders.

“Let’s do something new, let’s endorse our own principles for a change and boldly speak the truth without fear.”

Jindal also slammed the GOP field more broadly, saying “there are a lot of great talkers running for president already” but none that match his record of slashing government and defending conservative principles.

He is also the first-ever Indian-American candidate for president, though he often inveighs against the “hyphenation” of American identity, as he did in his launch speech.

The Louisiana governor faces a steep climb in his quest for the GOP nomination.

He’s the 13th Republican candidate to officially enter the race, although the field is expected to swell to 16 by next month.

Jindal’s first order of business will be to improve his standing in the polls enough to qualify for the upcoming GOP debates, the first two of which will be capped at 10 candidates based on national polling numbers.

He barely registers in national polls and currently sits in 15th place, according to the RealClearPolitics (RCP) average.

The governor’s outsider bid will hinge on his performance in the Iowa caucuses, where he’ll be competing with several other candidates for the support of socially conservative voters.

Jindal is currently performing as dismally in Iowa as he is nationwide, buried in 14th place, according to the RCP average.

However, he has emerged as a fierce critic of radical Islam and a conservative firebrand on the issue of religious freedom, which are important issues to the social conservatives who turn out in strong numbers for the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

“Christianity is under assault today in America,” Jindal said Wednesday. “I’m going to say this slowly so that even Hillary Clinton can understand it. America did not create religious liberty, religious liberty created the United States of America, and it’s time we stopped trying to divide ourselves against each other.”

[PzLdr]

Soon there will be more 'Pubbies running than voting.

[truth_seeker]

Okay, now 13 dwarves. This parade is laughable.

These guys are something else. "Okay, after monitoring the situation testing the public for months, I have concluded that my one percent is clear and compelling evidence the country wants and needs me, me, me, me."

[mountaineer]

There are several good GOP candidates who, unfortunately, have very little hope of getting on the Nov. 2016 ballot. He's just the latest.

[aligncare]

At least Jindal does not subscribe to political correctness. And he has been good for Louisiana.

I heard him interviewed on Sean's show last night. He's always pretty good in interviews.

[Fishrrman]

I agree with the sentiments above that Jindal probably doesn't have a chance at winning.

That's too bad. He's been speaking very well lately, saying things that need to be said.

His goal for entering the race may be less about winning this time, than positioning himself for 2020...

[mountaineer]

Why Bobby Jindal Is Very Problematic  
Because identifying as things is good, unless what you identify as is an American.
June 24, 2015 By Ben Domenech
The Federalist

Today Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is set to join the 2016 field. He is barely making it into the polls at this juncture – his message, which combines serious executive and policy experience and a record of dealing with multiple challenges (oil spills and hurricanes, tax and budget crises, getting sued over school choice) is not the sort of thing that appeals to the Republican Party right now, which seems more interested candidates most likely to get into a physical fight with Barack Obama. It seems fitting that Jindal is entering the race the same day that a poll is released showing Donald Trump in second in New Hampshire. But Jindal, who joins Rubio as the youngest candidates in this race, is a serious and likeable person who believes he has a message worth adding to the 2016 field. Here he is talking to his kids about running for president. He may yet overperform expectations, and if he can make it onto a debate stage, he has the capability to go toe-to-toe with any of the other candidates on any policy issue.

Jindal presents a challenging figure to the media in a number of respects, particularly those used to depicting Republicans as uneducated dummies. He has an Ivy League resume unmatched in the field – a Rhodes Scholar who was accepted into Harvard Medical and Yale Law but chose Oxford instead, appointed secretary of the Louisiana Health system at 24, president of the University system at 28. He’s got a brain, and a child of immigrants story to go with it.

So you ask how to write about Jindal? I give you The Washington Post’s India bureau chief:

“As a child, he announced he wanted to go by the name Bobby, after a character in “The Brady Bunch.” He converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teen and was later baptized a Catholic as a student at Brown University — making his devotion to Christianity a centerpiece of his public life. He and his wife were quick to say in a “60 Minutes” interview in 2009 that they do not observe many Indian traditions — although they had two wedding ceremonies, one Hindu and one Catholic. He said recently that he wants to be known simply as an American, not an Indian American. “There’s not much Indian left in Bobby Jindal,” said Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who is writing a book on the governor.”

There are so many wonderful little aspects to this attack on Jindal’s insufficient respect for his Indian heritage. Imagine the WaPo or any other newspaper publishing a piece taking exactly this line of attack on the Castro brothers. Imagine a white journalist quoting a white professor criticizing the Castro brothers as being insufficiently Hispanic – “my goodness, they don’t even speak Spanish!” – and think how that would play in media circles.

Yet there’s something else interesting here beyond the normal lack of fair reporting. Just a few weeks ago a Washington Post reporter, Caitlin Dewey, created a Twitter bot correcting people who referred to Bruce Jenner in ways conflicting with how he now wants to be identified. Now, I generally have no real problem with people identifying as things that are different than what they are – my problem is with the idea that others need to acknowledge the heroism of such identification, or that we make it a thoughtcrime to disagree with their vision of reality. But set that aside for the moment and think about how differently these WaPo reporters approached these two subjects.

This reporting tactic concerning Bobby Jindal raises a series of troublesome questions about the way reporters view the process of Americanization. Jindal has never to my knowledge denigrated his Indian heritage – he just reflects more the Louisiana where he grew up than the country of his ethnic origin. What’s so wrong with that? Why is it so problematic that Jindal identifies as Christian, not Hindu? Why is it a problem that he took on an Americanized name, as many children of immigrants do, and not his original birth name? Why is it a problem that he and his wife observe American traditions and not many Indian ones?

We live in an era where we are supposed to hail the heroism of men who identify as women, and where serious people defend Rachel Dolezal identifying as black. Perhaps Bobby Jindal is problematic because identifying as things is good, unless what you identify as is an American.

Even if it just so happens to be who he is.

[aligncare]

I like Bobby Jindal a lot. He's smart and right on the issues.

[Bigun]

I like Bobby Jindal a lot. He's smart and right on the issues.

Agreed!

[libertybele]

Maybe I'm just being hopeful, but there has to be a reason that so many for the GOP are jumping in.  Unfortunately, the very staunch conservatives are polling at the bottom.  IMO Trump is from the Clinton camp running under the GOP umbrella to take votes away from Bush. 

[Right_in_Virginia]

Soon there will be more 'Pubbies running than voting.

So true.