FLASHBACK: Bobby Jindal's Exorcism Problem

[MindMover]

Last edited Thu May 17, 2012, 07:11 PM - Edit history (1)

In an op-ed for Politico on Wednesday, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist called on presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to select Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as his running mate. That came just a week after former Bush speech writer David Frum penned a piece for CNN entitled "Bobby Jindal for Vice President." Scott Conroy captured the emerging zeitgeist with a profile of Jindal for Real Clear Politics in which he reported that, after "private conversations with people close to both Romney and Jindal," there were plenty of reasons to believe" that Jindal could be our next vice president. Phil Klein at the Washington Examiner says Jindal is "hands down" the best to be Romney's running mate. Jindal Fever: catch it!

Criticism of Jindal—aside from his dodgy health care privatization scheme, support for an Arizona-style immigration law, and fierce opposition to reproductive rights—tends to center on an awkward State of Union response he delivered three years ago. This is dumb because most people didn't watch it, and anyway, there's basically no dignified way to rebut a State of the Union. (For one thing, unlike the President's speech, there's no one there to applaud.)

A much bigger reason why Jindal won't be Romney's running mate is the exorcism he conducted.

No, really. Jindal himself wrote about the experience in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, in an article entitled "Beating a Demon: Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare." The short of it is that, while Jindal was an undergraduate, his close friend, Susan, with whom he had maintained a wholly non-romantic relationship, began acting strange. One might attribute this to the fact that she was undergoing treatment for cancer. Jindal assumed she had been possessed. A sample:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/bobby-jindal-exorcised-his-college-girlfriend

[TlalocW]

1. I don't think Jindal will do it. I've said a few times

For all of Jindal's reputation as some sort of wunderkind, he had a narrow window for him to try for the presidency. I couldn't see him trying in 2012 because what with all the subtle and not-so-subtle emergence of racism on the right, his non-whiteness would have kind of the same effect on the GOP's electorate excitement that Romney's Mormonism is having. If (when) Obama wins in 2012, he would have to wait until 2016 and in the veep slot. If they won, no doubt they would run for reelection, and he would have to wait until 2024 to try for the top spot. If they lost reelection, he could still try running in 2024, but he would be seen as part of a losing team, and I doubt he would get the nomination. If he wanted to get in sooner than 2024, he would HAVE to take the veep slot this year and hope they get reelected in 2016 so he could run in 2020.

So Jindal has got a problem - the evil he knows, Romney, who I'm sure Jindal is unsure of as every other republican, and I'm sure Jindal sees Romney's chances at best at 50-50 or the evil he doesn't. It might be better to wait until 2016 when there are no incumbents to run against and take his chances then.

TlalocW