The WSJ has an interesting (and somewhat fawning) interview piece with Bobby Jindal, desi front-runner in the Louisiana Governor’s race. The now standard intro on Jindal lauds his technocratic skills –
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WSJ’s famous thumbprint pix are so last century. Now a watercolor portrait signals you’ve made it. |
Mr. Jindal, 36, is an affable policy wonk with a quick mind and a fascination with the details of governance. Before our interview, an aide emailed me a series of press releases announcing his 28-point anticrime agenda, his 31-point anticorruption agenda and his 25-point agenda to curb spending.
And significant time is spent on his wonkish roots, which include a tale familiar to many ABCD’s –
…In high school, Bobby aspired to be a doctor. But he sought out a well-rounded education, and this eventually led to a change in plans. As an undergraduate, he served an internship in the office of Rep. Jim McCrery, a Shreveport Republican. He earned a master’s in political theory, then went to work as a health-care consultant at McKinsey & Co. While there, he read an article in the Washington Post about Louisiana’s troubled health-care system. “It seemed to me that they were going to make a bad problem worse. They were going to have more government-run health care, more spending. So I wrote up an analysis of what I thought they should do.”
It was 1995, and Republican Mike Foster had just been elected governor. Rep. McCrery and then-Sen. John Breaux were impressed with Mr. Jindal’s report and recommended him to Mr. Foster’s transition team. Eventually he met the governor-elect, who proclaimed Mr. Jindal a “genius” and offered him the top job in the state’s Health and Hospitals Department. He was 24. “I realized: ‘Well, I guess I’m not going to medical school anymore.’ “
The remainder of the piece goes into more detail on the origins of Jindal’s politics, religion, Louisiana’s political & economic history, and perhaps most importantly, his program for post-Katrina Louisiana. An interesting read indeed.
Perhaps it’s not the new century, but the foxy new management that changed the WSJ thumbprints to color.
A truly brave and honest politician (not Jindal or anyone else who would like to get elected in La) would point to it being a judicial hell-hole (regarding torts). Insurance carriers both in the standard and E&S market are now more than wary of writing business (both property and casualty–even in the softest market in years!!!!) in a state where judges, juries and nearly everyone who can walk hates insurance companies (and this attitude predated Katrina by a good 50 years). they would also point out the idiocy of encouraging New Orleans to grow past it’s previous size–did not Katrina (and Rita) teach us that New Orleans is, ideally, a very small city? Miami/Atlanta should not be objects of emulation for NO. Jindal certainly knows how to clear the welfare and medicaid rolls (which a rhesus monkey, equipped with the knowledge of how to use the delete button could do), but does he know how to prepare La for the eventuality of natural disaster while growing it’s economy?
Would Jindal have had even a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected if he went to campaign stops with kumkum and holy ash smeared across his forehead? I know that Hindu-identified Republicans have found a great deal of success as behind-the-scenes fund-raisers and local organizers but how well have they done in general elections? Have any even tried?
“My faith gives me much comfort in the face of adversity”
“oh, so you talk to God? Tell us more!”
“Yes, every evening I commune with Vishnu and inquire as to whether I should press the state legislature to limit financial damages from punitive judgments handed down by our courts.”
“well, as it ain’t Jesus’ daddy you’re talking to, I’d think that was a dumb thing to say. Punitive damages are our god-given birthright, g-dammit!!!”
Thankfully for Jindal(and his electability), he took the Ponnuru route long ago.
Not read much about Bobby Jindal’s election speeches or agenda yet…Is he in the same league Dinesh D’Souza ?
Priya @ 4,
If you belong to anti-D’souza camp check this wonderful book – Karma of brown folks by Vijay Prashad. Politics apart this is an excellent read ( and some rare photographs ) that traces the history of desis in America.
Jindal isn’t the jerk and sensationalist D’Souza is.
Regardless of attacks on his religion (I don’t doubt Hindu’s would have trouble with their religion when running for office in the US–one only needs to look at Romney for some evidence of this [and that comes from both his liberal and conservative opponents]) the fact that Jindal converted to Christianity isn’t really an indictment of his character despite attempts to claim it was done for political expediency
And yeah, spin the fact he cleared up a 400 millionish deficit by claiming all he did was hurt poor people. Forget the fact that Bayou nursing homes had the highest profit margin in the country when he came in, or that the feds claimed that LA owed money when they were actually due it for medicaid, or that the entire system was wrought with corruption or fraud.
Jindal is trying to set himself up to be an Indian Obama and while that may be disconcerting to some it makes more sense to attack his unyielding views on social issues. And if you want to talk about NO, you have to get that in the head of its mayor, Nagin.
a friend of mine from louisiana told me that the democrats are trying to refer to him as pyush jindal (his legal name is still pyush). i’m not a fan of jindal’s opportunistic social conservatism (he has a degree from brown in biology but he pandered to creationists in 2003) or his religious conversion, but, louisana does need a technocrat. politicians in general are dishonest sycophants (“i’ll lower your taxes and provide more social services!”), that’s who we vote for, that’s what a broadly democratic process with dumb voters is going to generate. they distinguish themselves in their proximate competence and propensity toward corruption. from what i have heard/read he’s more competent and less corrupt than the typical louisiana pol. it’s about beating expectation, not attaining perfection.
He took his name from the Brady Bunch? That says it all, right there.
gack
This might be a bit of fictionalization from Mr Jindal, he was probably nicknamed after a cousin named Bobby given the amount of Bobbies there are in desh.
Bobby Jindal 2012!
Well, then I think it says something about him that he’d even rationalize it that way. Can you imagine a more tasteless I-wanna-be-WASP story than that? I mean, not even the Partridge Family…no, the Brady Bunch.
He is teh suck.
Why do you care so much about his choice of religion–I am Hindu but I think it’s a bit anti-Hindu to have this sneering attitude against him–my parents go to Muslim & Christian shrines at times….
I know Jindal has seriously examined his current faith when he underwent his conversion. Still I do not know if there were other subconscious reasons for him to do so when he did it. it’s one thing to believe in all of this stuff about the certainty of a specific God if you were raised to believe in something as a kid and it gives you comfort. But he seems to ahve intellectually examined all of this in great detail and he actualy joined a new organized religion as a teenager and still believes in all of this religious stuff to a great degree? I think that requires an even greater level of blind acceptance to do believe in all of this without it being ingrained in you as a kid. Even if one gave him the benefit of doubt on this, we gotta remember the same guy was embarassed by his given name. So I notice a trend here.
Anyway, let’s toss all that aside. We can go on forever about religious stuff or his name. As much as I am skeptical of his choices, and I despise how the Republicans handled the Katrina crisis, I am glad to see Blanco go. The Democratic Party in LA is a joke too. I think Jindal will be an improvement over most politicians of both parties in Lousiana when it comes to efficiency. Sometimes, one has to ignore ideology when things are so fucked up and treat your state like a corporation and hire the best CEO to fix the nuts and bolts things. I think Jindal will do it better than unqualified people like Blanco or Landrieu. Jindal reminds me of one of my former bosses. I do not agree with him on anything about politics. But he is a very sincere hard worker and will treat you fairly at work. Hell, i do not even agree with him on some procedural office work stuff like work hours and telecommutting. But he is a better choice to lead the company than some guy who may agree with me on more issues. Jindal has that zeal in him to make a difference compared to Blanco. I am still bothered he did not lobby the Bushies harder to get some problems with Katrina fixed. He seems to have noticed the incompetency at the state and federal level and shrugged his shoulders and did his own thing alone because he was fed up with how the others did things.
It annoys the hell out of me when Indian-Americans identify with this sell-out. He doesn’t give a rats ass about us. If he could be white, you know he would. He converted, but his parents and family did not. He doesn’t use his Indian name. I bet he doesn’t go to bed before using one of those skin bleaching creams like Mike Jackson used to use!
Good point, Stan. Heh.
What do you mean with sellout? We are all different than we would have been if we had not left India. Is there a proper way for the billion plus Indians to behave that can not be changed under any circumstances?
I definitely would not put Jindal in the same ballpark as Dinesh D Souza. Not even close. Very few deserve to be compared to that imbecile. Two things – jindal doesn’t sound crazy. And he is a doer while DSouza is just a self important talker.
@13 – Well said, Pravin. I grew up in Louisiana and am all too familiar of the endless circle of political incompetence and corruption there. At times Louisiana politics is so sad it’s funny – leaving Katrina, Edwards, Duke, and Jefferson aside for a moment, consider that Bob Odom, who is still around, used his department’s white-collar employees to build a sugar mill in his hometown when the state refused to fund it (this was stopped only when the poor office workers injured themselves at the construction site).
I don’t agree with Bobby’s social conservatism, and I don’t know his reasons for conversion, but I do know that he’s the most competent candidate in the Louisiana gubenatorial race. If Jindal does win, it would be a boon for state in terms of public relations as well – proving that a state in the deep south can elect a non-white is itself a major statement.
stan. it annoys me when somebody like you tries to typecast a group you associate with as only legitimately holding certain views/religions/etc.
i’m pulling the race/prejudice card on that.
By the way, D’Souza shouldn’t fool anybody–regardless of any interesting points he makes, he’s a dirtbag.
Only by appealing to a certain segment that once voted for D. Duke….sounds like a phyrric victory to me
Barack Obama is also a convert to Christianity having had a Muslim father and gone to Muslim primary school (when living with mother and stepfather in indonesia) and he describes his own conversion in his 1995 book. I don’t think it’s warranted to be as cynical on either Obama or Jindal to say such conversions are purely for political expediency. I do think Christianity has an allure for a politician that Hinduism doesn’t. The fact is that Hinduism, for all its karmayoga talk, does not value service, fellowship, and community in the same way that Christianity does. It doesn’t have the same history of mobilization and organization for the purposes of service. And at best, a politician is seeking to serve — Christianity in America at its best does the same.
Lots of American politicians have changed religions, by the way, including the current president, who became a methodist when his parents were episcopalian – this might seem meaningless but accounts for the evangelicism that he has vs. his father and for his abstinence from alcohol (though not required in the least by methodist church). With Bush, too, while there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of him, I think his religious conversion is honest as it was part of what saved his life from alcoholism, but it also helped him achieve a level of popularity in the South that his father was unable to attain.
Hindus and Sikhs have been successful in local elections in New Jersey and New York and there was a Sikh congressman (shaved) from California in the 1950s. I think they can win larger elections, but not with kumkum on their foreheads (nor would an overly visually ostentatious Christian, such as a priest, nun, or monk in garb).
Is it just me or does that watercolor of Bobby J really look like Ray Romano?
Well, with Jindal, it is the combination of the name change and religion change that makes one skeptical.
nice try louiecypher
if you’d actually followed along you’d know that Blanco and the LA dems were the ones who appealed to racists sensibilities to defeat Jindal in 03. Being made darker in commercials was done for a reason.
And now, guess who’s taking an article written by him on christianity and claiming that he hates protestants?
Jindal winning in the south would be huge.
And yes he does resemble Ray Romano.
Resembles Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. Maybe that’s why he wants to run for School President.
OK, you win. Blanco out maneuvered him in his attempt to appeal to that segment. Now that’s sad…
cool louiecypher, so legitimately appealing to a group based upon their views on certain positions makes somebody equivalent to being a racist? I mean, are you really such a fascist that you believe being against gay marriage, being pro life and being in favor of the death penalty or something is equivalent to being racist or unamerican?
You know… That makes you a pretty ignorant human being considering that at the very least, most of the positions argued by mainstream politicians (be it Jindal or Pelosi and all those in between) are based upon legitimate arguments. Trying to smear people like you do is the cause of the pathetic state of politics today.
ce blast and louiecypher,
you both are missing the dyanimcs of louisiana politics, and bobby jindal in particular.
traditionally, african americans are the strong core base of democrats. they have always been.
whites fall in two camps: catholic cajuns in south louisiana, and protestants in north louisiana.
for a democrat to win, they need some cajun, and protestant vote padded to their african american base.
for a republican to win, they need to hold strong with the white vote – both south cajun and north louisiana vote.
bobby jindal has very strong support with south louisiana white catholics, even in the last elections, because they connect to his religious faith, and tend to be slightly forgiving of color, as they themselves tend to be mixed too, sometimes. african americans are very leery of jindal, and some of it due to his policies as a health secretary, and some race baiting by him on radio talk shows.
in last election, blanco is a cajun with her husband one of the deans of UL, Lafayette. on TV debate in the last election, she talked about her son’s death, and that connected emotionally with lot of working class whites. this is inspite of ray nagin supporting jindal, nagin and blanco have old rivalry that goes to blanco’s brother (or is it landreiu’s brother) pitted against nagin in NO, blanco won the election. even then she won on the strength of african americans, and working class north louisiana – a strange combination. she was trailing in opinion polls but the tv debate turned it around.
north louisiana is quite leery of jindal, but in post-katrina world, i guess they are willing to give him a chance. the ad about his criticism of protestants is to energize the voters in Shreveport and above to rally behind a democrat.
will jindal victory be a big deal – i do not think so. he is probably not corrupt like a lot of south louisiana politicians, but very much part of the louisiana white republican establishment, that is led by current louisiana senators, foster and all, and is prone to race baiting.
if john breaux (former US senator) had run for the governorship, he would have trounced jindal hands down
breaux = cajun, white, pork king, and very influential. one of the leading blue dog democrat, known for bipartisan deal maker in his senate days.
i guess making millions of dollars as a lobbyist, and louisiana residential (voter registration) requirements were too much to tempt him to contest.
this is also true that lot of former david duke supporters are quite keen on bobby jindal – after all he is the boy genius (as mike forster himself quoted), and a model minority. he is the lightening rod against african americans, and will not give them the free pills and meds (as a health secretary, he cut a lot of benefits – good or bad, take your pick).
the crux of louisiana politics is not coming of age of south asian (or indian) american politician – it revolves around permutations and combinations of white, and african american voters.
The Jena 6
I wonder what Jindal’s stance is on this incident where whites attacked blacks for having the temerity to sit under a tree designated for whites in a small town in Louisiana. Then then white hung nooses from a tree and the incident was dismissed as a harmless prank. No prosecutions when whites attacked blacks, but when a bunch of black students retaliated for racial taunting by one of the whites in a separate incident and the black students beat the white kid up, the DA charges them and they get sent to jail.
Blanco and the other useless white democrats did nothing for the black community in this place. This would be a nice area where Jindal can show he is a man of action and do something substantive.
don’t comment on JENA if you don’t know the details, do your research, second, people of India are classafied caucasian, white, if you please, he is not a non white governor elect. again, it is called RSEARCH.
But would Louisiana elect an African-American governor?I somehow doubt it.