Last week when the Romney camp’s tax and Bain meltdown was building, Matt Drudge tried to help his pals in Mittland by posting a rumor about Condoleeza Rice as the Mittbot’s running mate. It was a pure D bullshit attempt to distract the MSM by dangling a bright and shiny bauble in front of them. It didn’t work because Condi is *so* unlikely to run for office, especially since she’s rumored to be moderate on most social issues, and because the Romney meltdown was so much more entertaining for all concerned. It, however, could have worked because the press loves nattering on about the so-called Veepstakes.
Ms. Rice is also unlikely to be selected because Mitt Offshore and the Z-Team don’t want us to think of Dubya, his wars and the Bush economy. And Condi Rice was not only present at the creation (to use Dean Acheson’s phrase) but she was W’s office wife. She was the person closest to the idiot prince in government. It’s bad enough for Mitt that former President Beavis published a book yesterday and is now on video supporting Romney. He needs Condi Rice tied around his neck like he needs another story about outsourcing…
Anyway, the whole point of this increasingly pointless post is that it rarely matters who a nominee picks. The best picks (Gore, Mondale) can only help around the edges and the worst picks (Agnew, Quayle) can only hurt around said edges. None of the GOP “short listees” can help all that much. T-Paw’s state is going blue but he’s a nice enough guy so he humanizes the Mittbot. Portman might help a bit in Ohio but he was Bush’s budget director so he’s a wash. Ryan brings his Randian budget baggage along and only helps a smidge in Wisconsin. And my erstwile governor, Jindal, has impeccable winger credentials but is a robotic, boring windbag. The Gret Stet is deep red and the only excitement PBJ would bring is being the first Asian running mate. He’d soon tamp that down with his fast talking wonkery or is that wankery?
Speaking of windy, that was one long fucking paragraph. I hope Doc isn’t displeased. That’s why I’m keeping this one short…
Back to the low veepstakes, PBJ hosted a fund raiser in Red Stick for Mitt Offshore last Monday. He raised a cool $2 mill from Louisiana’s version of the usual suspects: shipping maggot magnate Boysie Bollinger, NO developer and pro-life fanatic Joe Cannizzaro and Saints grandkid Rita Leblanc Benson to name a few.
But if you logged onto the National Journal’s website, a widely respected source among political insiders, you would have seen Jindal lodged at No. 4 on the vice presidential “trending” list. That’s not bad, certainly, until you read the fine print and learn that the ranking places him just out of the speculative top tier. The article acknowledged Jindal’s policy chops, debating skills and popularity among the party’s conservative base. But it also noted that he’s not personally close to Romney and “doesn’t bring anything in the way of electoral benefits,” a reference to Louisiana’s reliable GOP leanings.
“Buzz around the Louisiana governor has definitely cooled,” the site noted.
So is Romney indeed closing in on a decision, as both sources speculated, and is Jindal really on the short list? The answer, it appears, is a definite maybe.
The one thing that’s clear in this muddy picture is that Jindal’s enthusiastically auditioning for the part.
In Baton Rouge Monday, he introduced Romney to a gathering of major donors by dutifully echoing the campaign’s emphasis on Romney’s business and management experience, and Obama’s lack thereof.
“We have a president who hadn’t run anything before he was in the White House,” Jindal said. The governor went on to call Obama the “most liberal and incompetent president since Jimmy Carter. No offense to Jimmy Carter.”
It seems to me that Goopers whine every time Obama mentions former President Beavis and here’s PBJ beating the dead horse that is the Carter administration. Out of office for 30 years, y’all. Pitiful, Piyush. Actually, the last pre-O Democratic President that I’d call a liberal was LBJ who was a raging hawk on foreign policy but very progressive on domestic matters during his tenure as the oval one.
Stephanie went on to describe PBJ’s goofy and gaffey appearance on MTP:
… on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Jindal drew a sharp retort from host David Gregory for a comment reminiscent of his headscratching anecdote about the late Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee during his first big speech.
Explaining why Romney supported an insurance mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts but opposes a similar provision in Obama’s national health reform law, Jindal said that “states are different.”
“The Founding Fathers intended each state to be a laboratory of experimentation. I come from one of the most distinct cultural states in the entire country. Mardi Gras’s great for Louisiana. It may not work as well in Vermont or other states,” he said, referring to the home base of his debate opponent du jour, former governor and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.
Gregory’s incredulous response: “You’re really comparing Mardi Gras to universal health insurance?”
Where to start? The Mardi Gras analogy is downright silly but there *have* been some obscene health care related floats in Krewe du Vieuxover the years. Not that PBJ has ever seen KdV or even your basic parade. His idea of fun is cutting medicaid, destroying the state education system and being involved in the odd exorcism. He also thinks that Iowa and New Hampshire are swingin’ places…
My teeth really started grinding over the founding fathers/ laboratory thing. I assume that PBJ isn’t aware that referring to the states as “laboratories for democracy” originated with the late, great Justice Louis Brandeis who was <shuddering> a progressive Democrat. I realize that all good things came from the founding fathers-from slavery to limiting the franchise to rich white dudes-but this phrase came from a liberal Jew from Noo Yawk. Sorry, Bobby.
It appears that PBJ will not be on the ticket but since Romney seems determined to lose the election, it wouldn’t rid Louisiana of the Whiz Kid and his “conservative reforms” in any event. He will, however, spend a lot of time out of state chasing his impossible dream of the presidency and campaigning for the Mittens/T-Paw ticket. Yeah, that’s my guess: T-Paw does the least harm, which is why Walnuts should have picked him in ’08. He still would have lost but wouldn’t be lying about what a swell candidate Palin was. The main thing the Veep pick reflects is judgment and McCain’s sucks.
I have just returned from the future in order to retroactively assure everyone that Jindal will not be Mitt’s V-P pick. But I hear there’s a slot in the Department of “Something Called Volcano Monitoring” if he wants it.
You say PBJ. I say shit sandwich.
Doncha love Mittens referring to the waitstaff at the City Club as members of the middle class? If you work for tips and don’t get emploer-provided health insurance, you the working poor, you out-of-touch douchebag.
As despicable in almost every regard as Jindal is, it is hard to find him any more repugnant than those who are forever wedded to racist Piyush references.
Thinking of the wars and the Bush economy, Forbes has a piece that Obama has the slowest growth of govt.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/
Especially see the bar graph. The top percentage increase? Reagan (first term) and Bush II (both terms).
@Mass, And yet, when the repubs talk about saving money for the middle class, the middle class makes far more money than most people will ever see. Funny how the definition of the range for “middle class” reflects one’s politics.
Much like the current brouhaha that letting the tax cuts for the upper class expire will hurt “small business” – and it will too under the current definition which includes Koch as a small business.
@Rousseau: My reference to his *real* first name was not racist and neither are many others. That’s something that really bugs me: Jindal has spent his lifetime running away from his background and only trots it out when it’s expedient. It’s his frakking name, Bobby is a nickname.
Call me crazy and hand me a tin foil hat but I’m guessing Jeb, the good Bush, is the veep of choice if he will accept. Barring that, the mittster will get one who will show ten years of tax returns and pretend that should be enough to excuse the mittster prankster from having to show any.
My guess, and that’s all it is, is Portman — the Bush connection is problematic, but his profile was much lower than Condoleezza Rice and the Rethugs will hope he can steer Ohio into their column.
As for PBJ, he’s ambitious, but I can’t imagine him getting any real national traction. He can clean up here in The Gret Stet — probably could even before the Flood, but especially now — but the Gilligan/Kenneth the Page combination? I don’t see it.
What I do see is maybe a appointed position in a Republiclown administration, probably Health and Human Services based on his background. And yeah, that’d suck: PBJ as front man for the Ryan Plan. Sigh.
And I was wondering what was going on Monday when I had to detour around the road blocks around here. Had forgotten Mittens was in town pocketing what for him is small change. Fittingly, the City Club is right across the street from the local office of the Stanford Financial Group…the other Ponzi Scheme in recent headlines.