With his repeated pledge not to veto the pay raise that will double legislators’ salaries, Gov. Bobby Jindal continues to woefully underestimate how much his lack of action is enraging conservatives and some of his biggest supporters. Yesterday, syndicated conservative radio host Moon Griffon pulled a commercial from his show touting Jindal, calling it “an outright lie.” The ad, bought by Believe in Louisiana, the non-profit 527 founded by Jindal campaign treasurer and Baton Rouge Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister, featured a script that claimed Jindal was behind the effort to repeal the Stelly Tax. “This group is telling a whopper,” Griffon told The Advocate. “They’re saying the governor is doing something he didn’t do. Gov. Jindal led the charge to cut the income taxes? That’s an outright lie.”
Griffon isn’t the only north Louisiana conservative media outlet that’s blasting away at Jindal. The Monroe News-Star newspaper, which enthusiastically endorsed Jindal for governor, has a scathing editorial today that questions a “guest column” that Jindal submitted to the newspaper yesterday. The News-Star printed Jindal’s column, which proclaims, “In the New Louisiana, we are introducing a new era of fiscal discipline by eliminating wasteful spending that does not address our state’s priorities.”
In its response, The News-Star wonders if Jindal has “lost complete touch with events around him. It’s possible; as a congressman, he spent much of his second term here seeking the governor’s job. Now, as governor, he spends much of his time in Washington in what many observers believe is an effort to seek higher office there.”
The paper implores readers to read Jindal’s column, and notes: “It might frighten you. It frightens us, not only for its content but for what it doesn’t say.”