The GOP post-mortems are coming fast and furious. This unintentionally funny
one comes from my rabidly ambitious erstwhile Governor,
Bobby Jindal:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to “stop being
the stupid party” and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of
voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature
the GOP as the party of the rich.In his first interview since his party’s electoral thumping last week, Jindal urged
Republicans to both reject anti-intellectualism and embrace a populist-tinged
reform approach that he said would mitigate what exit polls show was one of
President Barack Obama’s most effective lines of attack against Mitt Romney.“We’ve
got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall
Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO
in a 45-minute telephone interview. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party
that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”
This
is,uh, rich coming from PBJ who as Governor has waged war on public
education, and is so taxophobic that he wouldn’t originally sign off on keeping
tobacco taxes high enough to discourage smoking. In fact, his entire political
philosophy-if you want to call it that-boils down to this: Taxes bad;
creationism good; Jindal awesome.
On the
rare occasions he was in Baton Rouge in 2012, PBJ ran roughshod over the LSU
Board of Supervisors, fired recalcitrant system President John Lombardi and
voucherized primary and secondary public education. It’s what happens when you
have a Governor who spent his school days strictly in private schools. When it
comes to education, PBJ is Shiva the destroyer or perhaps even Kalki.
The mere
fact that this cut-rate version of Willard the weathervane feels free to depart
from *some* teawad dogma means that some changes will actually be coming to the
Republican
message but not its substance.
Jindal is
clearly positioning himself for 2016 and he fits the GOP model for the perfect
minority candidate. The party that froths at the mouth over affirmative action,
practices it when it comes to candidates. True tokenism is the rule of the
party: PBJ is way to the right but he has dark skin, ergo the GOP is
enlightened, not racist. Whatever, dude.
The pol
Jindal most reminds me of is-get ready-Willard Mittbot Romney. He’s robotic,
awkward and dull, dull, dull. Willard is at least good-looking whereas PBJ is
the guy who could turn the nasty party into the ugly party.
Jindal
has relentlessly pandered to the religious right and *that* part of his
message will not change. While he criticizes the Akins and Mourdocks of his
party, it’s more about their verbal table manners than anything else:
“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our
brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal
said. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within
our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of
this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to
trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the
intelligence of the voters.”
Again, this is fascinating coming from a man who talks down to his state’s
electorate. PBJ tends to speak at the 4th or 5th grade
level when addressing the people of the Gret Stet. Hence, the comparisons to
Kenneth the page from 30 Rock.
Kenneth has subsequently been demoted to janitor, it’s a pity that the same
won’t happen to PBJ…
There is
also no way in hell that PBJ will abandon his party’s insanely retrograde
positions on social issues. I think their (wide?) stances on gay rights,
women’s issues and tattoos and piercings are dragging them down with younger
voters. I made the bit up about tattoos and piercings but PBJ would pierce his
pencil dick if he thought it would get him elected without alienating his
confederate base.
The
coming war within the GOP should be most amusing. I’m going to sit back, pour
myself a beverage and enjoy watching the freak show.