Republican strategist Mark McKinnon calls Gov. Bobby Jindal an "outside pick" who might just make it onto the ticket. Speaking on NPR over the weekend, Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, who advised both George W. Bush and John McCain, calls Gov. Bobby Jindal an "outside pick" for VP who's worth keeping an eye on:
The guy, I think, is kind of an outsider that people should keep an eye is Bobby Jindal from Louisiana, cause he's - he'd be sort of an outside pick, a bit of a long shot that would excite people because, you know, he's of Indian descent. Conservatives love him. But he also has an amazing track record on health care issues. I mean he worked in HHS earlier on in his career, so you'd be an interesting pick and what I think would excite people and be a little bit different.
McKinnon was commenting to NPR's Rachel Martin about possible strategies Mitt Romney, who is likely to secure the Republican nomination, might use in choosing his running mate. Read a transcript of the exchange here.
The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, however, had a different take on the Jindal for VP speculation this morning:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal: Plausible .?.?. but why?
Romney has survived the primary campaign by declaring himself to be an ideologically pure conservative, but nothing in his history suggests this is actually the case. He's a dedicated believer in the free market, without question. Beyond that, however, he's basically a technocrat who lets data, not ideology, lead him to solutions - as with the health-insurance mandate he instituted in Massachusetts.
So why would he choose another data-driven technocrat as his running mate? Jindal would bring neither charisma nor the electoral votes of a swing state to the ticket.
Read Robinson's handicapping of potential running mates here.
Riding high on the success of his sweeping education reform legislation, Jindal is now turning his attention to reforming the state's retirement system.
Shreveport demographer Elliott Stonecipher, a frequent critic of the governor, minced no words about Jindal's motives in his eblast this morning:
Those of us keeping up with what happens behind the political curtain have a bad feeling of deja vu on that score. I've written about it enough, and won't belabor it, but the fact is Governor Jindal strong-arms these "reforms" through a pre-leased legislature each time he's hoping to be the vice presidential candidate on his party's ticket. Ramping up to the 2008 presidential election it was "ethics reform," and four years later as we gird for the 2012 campaign it's "education reform." The problem is, "ethics reform" was no such thing. It was, rather, a huge political show for a national audience which, back here on the farm, put governors and legislators in charge of ethics enforcement. That is never a good thing anywhere, but maybe especially not in Louisiana. For those who keep up, we know our governmental ethics regime was not reformed, it was hammered into submission by those who are, or figure they might be on any given day, unethical.
Why do this in 23 days? What was the rush if it isn't to get Jindal back to the top of that veep list just about the time Mitt Romney is wrapping up the Republican nomination? Coincidence, especially since precisely the same timing applied to the 2008/ethics reform blueprint? Apparently not since prominent Republican George Will just said so on national television. (I respect George Will, especially for his knowledge of baseball, but I'd be stunned if he has spent 15 seconds finding out what anyone in Louisiana thinks about how our governor "reforms" things.)
One way or the other, Gov. Jindal isn't likely to be living in Louisiana when we struggle with our newfound, quasi-public school system. That's never a good thing. It's the opposite of skin in the game. It's more like drastic change on the ground and changer-in-chief in the wind.
Truth be known, former teacher that I am, I cannot in good conscience claim that the outlines of the governor's plans don't make sense ... they do. I can, though, say this very clearly: when a governor or mayor or any other governmental executive is about to change the legal basics of the employment status of tens-of-thousands workers, he or she must, as a good and decent human being, find more than 23 days to do it ... many, many more than 23.