Ok. We admit it. We’re a little obsessed with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Not his policies or legislation (we have no endorsements to offer; this is not a political blog). But we like to see him message. One thing is clear: Jindal wastes no time in seizing what he feels is the perfect opportunity to get his point across. Some call it opportunistic. We call it entertaining.
After the second-term election of President Barack Obama, many in the GOP were stunned they hadn’t been victorious. Of course, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s bone-headed comments about “binders full of women” and the infamous “47 percent” debacle hadn’t won over a majority of the country. Romney’s post-election comments about President Obama’s supposed “gifts” to minority groups were equally dubious and left Republicans eager to distance themselves from such comments.
Jindal, not one to miss an opportunity to shine, said the party needed to reinvent itself so that it wouldn’t isolate and divide voters. He famously remarked at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, “We have got to stop dividing the American voters. We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent.”
The Gambit, a New Orleans-based publication, sums it up nicely:
“President Barack Obama’s second-term victory was just days old when Jindal made his move. After spending much of the campaign’s final weeks on the road as a swing-state surrogate for Mitt Romney, he turned on a dime and used a series of major national media interviews to lay into the nominee and his party, casting them as out of touch, wrongheaded and shallow. … Jindal said the Republicans have got to ‘stop being the stupid party’ and stop acting as though they just want to protect rich people. He argued that Romney focused too much on biography and not enough on substance, and he lambasted extreme comments made by losing Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana, notably Todd Akin’s concept of “legitimate rape” and Richard Mourdock’s notion that pregnancies resulting from rape are part of God’s plan. ‘It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,’ Jindal said.”
Bold, right? It seems like Jindal might know what to say and when to say it in attempt to go after all the votes he feels Romney left on the table. Not everyone is buying what Jindal is selling. The Progressive called his latest messaging tactics a sham.
Even if his comments are a “sham,” the message Jindal wanted to relay to Americans got across. If the message didn’t get across, at least American voters heard what he had to say. Two checks for the man who may be in the race for the presidency in 2016.
You be the judge. What do you think?